Some of the key words in our social culture today are empowerment, acceptance, and equality. We talk about female empowerment, gender equality, marriage equality, cultural acceptance and diversity, etc. What we value as a generation is the innate worth in everybody that can’t be taken away from anyone nor claimed to be higher than someone else’s.
But for people who are so focused on affirming each other, we are a pretty hateful society. We are so quick to throw up the middle finger at one another, or murmur “the fuck?” at passerby who act contrary to social norms. We so nonchalantly say that we’ll kill someone if that person bothers us or the people close to us. I was presenting on prison reformation and justice in high school, and in one of the exercises, I asked the class if anyone has ever truly wanted to kill anyone. I kid you not, more than 90% of the class oh-so-naturally raised their hands.
I’m not trying to make a political or social statement on anything here – this is purely a reflection on my own values and choices.
All this to say that I am this person. (Or at least I was.) I would go to church and learn about my sins and how Jesus loves everyone. But the moment I left the church premises, it was like Jekyll and Hyde. My biggest talent was gossiping. I fed on drama and rumors, and watching people’s worst selves come out. I got into fights with friends and got called to the principal’s office way too often for arguing with teachers. But the worst thing was that I used to wish death and pain upon everyone who got in my way. My mom and sister were so afraid of me, thinking I was a literal demon child. At the time, I didn’t value people and didn’t respect anything about them.
The End.
Kidding!
Anyways, turmoil hit me in 2015, and it lasted 3 years. As I write more life blogs, the blanks will probably get filled, and the full picture of the 3 years will be drawn. But from 2015 to 2018, I hit rock bottom after rock bottom after another. Whenever I thought things couldn’t get any worse, it got exponentially worse each time. I wanted to die so bad, but I was scared. I even warned my poor mother to not be sad or blame herself if she ever walked into my corpse in the bathtub. I told her it was the best thing for me, and needed her to understand. Sometimes I would ask her to help me find someone who could perform euthanasia on me. I think back now to the pain I caused her with these things I uttered, and I feel forever sorry towards her. My pain was so big during the time, I was blind to everyone else’s pain. Sometimes, hurting others made me feel like I was relocating the pain I was feeling, and it was cathartic.
I slowly got healthier mentally and was taking better care of myself, but the wound stayed fresh for a long time. This is when my heart towards people started to change. During those years, I faced rejection, failure, hopelessness, desperation, anger, injustice, etc. all at the same time. It was something intangible yet so horrible that I couldn’t wish it upon anyone – even my biggest enemy. Not only did I not want to directly wish it upon anyone, but I wanted no one to go through it ever. I wanted to bear the pain for all of humanity so that no one ever had to feel as worthless and helpless as I did. And this feeling made me realize how fragile and pitiful people are. No matter how much I hope no one feels that amount of pain, there are still so many people out there suffering more than I ever did.
Then I started to hope and pray that everyone’s lives got better. I wanted everyone’s dreams to come true, and I wanted everyone to experience the most amount of happiness they could in this one little frail life they were given. I no longer wanted anything bad to happen to anyone, and I definitely did not want to contribute to making anyone’s life harder. I quit my devilish way of life cold turkey. No more drama, no more partaking in rumors, no more gossiping, no more provoking people, and no more two-faced personality. Whereas I used to feel jealously or like someone didn’t deserve their successes, I started to genuinely celebrate and be happy for others’ achievements. I also used to feel so unfair when a friend was able to accomplish something because of opportunities that were given to them, but were unavailable to me. But then I realized that if I were given those same opportunities, I probably would have done it too. Someone achieving something doesn’t make my potential go away. I am just living a different life with different opportunities and just as much potential.
I’m no angel, but I can proudly say I’m no longer a demon. I am just a human trying to make the best of the human experience. And I want everyone to also experience their lives to the fullest. How great would it be to give and be given love, support, and positive energy towards one another at everything we do?
This takes me back to our society’s values I mentioned earlier. I am glad our generation recognizes the innate worth in each and every person. But to me, it’s not because we are worthy that we must all be given good lives. It is because we are not worthy (not saying we’re worthless) that makes our lives so fragile and sad. We are such a delicate existence that can be destroyed by a whiff of the universe. That’s why we need to make a conscious effort to give it meaning and some dignity. And that’s why these social issues are important. Don’t take away people’s humanity and the right to experience the full extent of happiness in their lives. We are all here involuntarily and we are all in pain. Let’s try to lessen each other’s obstacles and start encouraging each other’s successes. Every success by someone is a success for humanity. We’re all on the same team here!
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