If you could recall, on May 11, 2023, Hilda Bassey, a native of Akwa-Ibom State in Nigeria, embarked on a cooking marathon, which she tagged 'cookathon.' It was an attempt to break the Guiness World Record (GWR) for the longest cooking time by an individual. The record was formerly held by Lata Tondon, an Indian chef who broke it in 2019.
Lata cooked for a whopping 87 hours and 45 minutes to clench the record. So, ordinarily, the challenge ahead of Linda was an enormous one. But she wasn't only interested in surpassing Tondon, the then-world record holder for the longest hour of cooking; she was out to do that by a good margin.
She set out to cook for 94 hours. At the tail end, not only did she achieve the goal she set for herself, she actually outdid herself. On Monday, the 14th of May, Chef Hilda Bassey cooked for a total of 100 hours.
However, the title for the longest hour a human had ever cooked wasn't immediately conferred on her by The Guinness World Record. The conferment happened after four weeks, when GWR officials might've carefully and satisfactorily examined all the videos and other related material submitted to them by Hilda to serve as evidence that she actually cooked for the acclaimed number of hours while strictly adhering to the rules guiding the breaking of the Guinness world record. The conferment came as a great relief to Hilda and her teeming supporters, of which I am one. To be honest, we were already losing patience.
Interestingly, GWR didn't award her the 100 hours she purportedly cooked. Almost Seven hours were deducted from the 100 hours. According to the explanation by GWR, the deduction was because she spent extra minutes in one of the rest sessions she was given. She was to rest for only five minutes every hour. That was the only time she could use the toilet or perform any other activity other than cooking.
After seeing how a slight miscalculation caused many hours to be deducted from Hilda's cooking session, I couldn't help but wonder what would've become of her if she'd stopped an hour or two after surpassing Lata's record of 87 hours and 45 minutes of cooking. Obviously, that was all she had to do to declare herself the current record holder.
But had she done that, her enormous sacrifice would've been wasted. It was said that she prepared herself for two years to break the record. Also, tens of millions of naira were spent on cooking and taking care of other modalities while the record-breaking cooking session lasted. All that would've amounted to nothing if she hadn't overdone it.
Speaking of overdoing, I have always been a fan of it. Inasmuch as I love moderation and practise it when it's necessary, I'm also aware that in some situations, overreaching has to be the norm. I had a female friend who used to accuse me of doing too much. Each time she brings it up, I tell her that overdoing is the only way I know how to do anything. True to my words, I engage in every task with so much gusto, passion, and enthusiasm. To me, whatever is worth doing is worth doing well.
Sadly, we are now living in a time where people do not demand much from themselves. They'll readily settle for the barest minimum. Settling for the barest minimum would've been okay if the reward for our labour lay with us. But that's not usually the case. We are often rewarded by external bodies. And these bodies might penalise us heavily for a slight loophole in our performance. Your best bet is that you'll be judged harshly before you're rewarded. So, to stand a good chance at reaching the mark, despite the presence of some stringent rules, we must aim to go beyond the mark.
I have a friend who proposed to graduate with a perfect cumulative grade point average (CGPA) of 5.0. Since his freshman year at the university, he's kept at it. Universities do have mid-semester examinations before the last examinations at the end of a semester. Usually, this friend of mine gets close to 100 percent in all his papers during the mid-semester examinations. But when the end-of-semester examinations come, he'll still read more than a person who failed the mid-semester examinations and is looking for ways to make up for it.
People often ask him why he's reading with so much intensity when all he needs to have an A at the end of the semester is to score at least a half in the end-of-semester examination since he'd almost gotten a perfect score in the mid-semester examinations. Each time such a question comes up, he'll say, "Why give less when you can give your best?" He'll say that and continue with his ferocious reading habit. In one instance, he made a slight mistake in one of his papers, and the lecturer judged him harshly. He ended with seventy-something percent. That is still an A, though it was far from the 90%-100% he aimed for.
Again, what if he didn't aim higher? Well, you know the answer—his dream of graduating with a perfect grade of 5.0 would've been affected.
I grew up with a quote by Norman Vincent Peale that says, "Shoot for the moon. Even if you fail, you'll fall among the stars."
That's a non-technical way of saying that you should aim higher than the set mark, so that if there's a mishap somewhere, you'll still succeed.
That's what Hilda Bassey did to become the current GWR holder for the longest hour of cooking. That's what the friend I cited here did to graduate with a perfect CGPA. You can do the same.
I feel compelled to remind you that we're only a few days into the second half of the year. And I believe that you've got goals to accomplish before the end of the year.
Maybe what that goal requires is that you do more than what's necessary for you to achieve it.
I'm urging you to not just meet the requirements; exceed them to assure yourself of success.
I'm rooting for your success.
Love and light!
© @mmykel