Last night, I was watching TV and the Dos Equis “Most Interesting Man In The World Commercial” came on. It was a new one and one of the statements made about the MIMITW was “Sharks have a week dedicated to him” — awesome.

If you know anything about me than you know two things: sharks are my favourite creatures and Shark Week is marked on my calendar as one of my favourite holidays. So, the Shark Week comment resonated for a wee while.

Where was I going with this? Oh yes, to have a “Mel-week” that sharks watch — perhaps that would be my pinnacle of “success” — I’m being slightly facetious here but the message is simply that there are different ways that our success can be celebrated.

Which way matters most to you and how will you get it?

Would you want someone to write a book about your life? Do you want a movie made about you? Do you want to be in the Guinness Book of World Records? Do you want to receive a Nobel Prize, a Pulitzer Prize, an Academy Award, or an Emmy?

A little self-disclosure: I want a Black Belt.

I’ve wanted a Black Belt in “a” martial art since I was a kid. I was aware enough to realise that Tae-Kwon-Do wasn’t for me and smart enough to quit, even midway to black belt. I knew I didn’t enjoy it anymore, and that I had never really enjoyed it. For me, a black belt symbolizes hard work, discipline — in the olden days, belts were never actually black but the term black belt came from how dirty the white belts of the most diligent students would get — and its something I want to achieve.

So that can be the apex of my martial arts career. Maybe for academia it will be the MD or Ph.D, for life it will be —- ???

Well, I guess that’s a work in progress.