What lessons did you learn from serving in the military? originally appeared on Quora, the place to gain and share knowledge, empowering people to learn from others and better understand the world. You can follow Quora on Twitter, Facebook, and Google Plus.

Here are the three things I learned that I think are most unique to serving in the military:

1) Intellect isn’t the most important trait in a person

In Singapore, most men enlist in the military immediately after high school. The years spent in the Singaporean education system, where there is a strong emphasis on academic achievement, caused me to value people by their intellect. 

This was corrected very quickly in Basic Military Training. The guys in the platoon who were looked up to were the ones who were dependable, helpful, extremely fit, or able to cheer us up when times were tough. These were often not people who had done particularly well in school. In fact, the people who were high achievers in school tended to look out for themselves a little more, and were more likely to test the rules and get everyone into the trouble.

2) How to quit worrying about things not in my control

In Officer Cadet School, there was a period of pretty extreme hazing. It started out as a surprise kit inspection for an upcoming field exercise. The first night, we were turned out and our kits failed for pretty sensible reasons - not cutting off the loose straps from the pack, for instance. All through the night, we did push ups, jumping jacks, ran around the compound touching trees, and other standard exercises.

This continued night after night. Our kit always managed to fail. The entrenching tool, which looks like a short hoe, has a metal blade that is painted black so that light wouldn’t reflect off of it, giving away our position. At some point, we were rightly called out for not sharpening our entrenching tool. “How are you going to dig a trench with a blade that dull?” they said. So that night we stayed up sharpening our tools, and in doing so, many of us ground away some of the black paint near the edge. The next night, we were called out for having more than an inch of exposed metal at the tip of the blade. Somehow that fraction of an inch of additional unblackened metal was supposed to be the difference between life or death.

This was psychologically difficult. After the first few episodes, we started to anticipate the nightly harassment and a sense of dread grew as night approached. Everyone became tense. At lights out, my bunkmate would lie awake in his number 4 and boots just waiting to be turned out.

But as the days wore on, a curious change occurred. It probably started with the realization that the nightly turn-outs were not caused by our poor kits. The instructors were simply trying to make life difficult. This meant that there was nothing we could do about it, and so there was no point feeling worried or scared of it. People soon started joking about it, and it was amazing how much the mood improved. When the instructors realized that we were no longer scared of the punishment, they stopped turning us out.

3) How to push myself to my limits

One of my biggest epiphanies occurred during a section-level exercise on an island off the coast of Singapore. The plan was for the seven of us to patrol a dusty road. Instructors were hiding in the trees, and would attack us and we would have to counterattack in formation with good fire control and movement.

It was midday and scorching hot. Our section was down to five because two had passed out in the heat. I remember the feeling of increasing desperation. No more water. So far to go. The straps of the pack cutting into my shoulders. The heat radiating up from the sand. And then, the sudden clarity that I would keep walking until I dropped, and then it would be okay. 

There were a number of other incidents, but none were as sharp as this. I had never before experienced the sense of calm that comes with deciding that you will give everything you have and accept whatever comes of it.

In hindsight, this is good military training because in the end you want to teach soldiers to be able to do things that they know might cost them their lives.

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