The 7 Lessons from My Self re-Discovering Journey
To start living a meaningful life, like all things in the universe, it's crucial to understand how thing works, and the reason that drives it. In my personal journey, to understand how thing works means I need to know how I can contribute and that brought me to discovering me, about who I am and not just about what I am. I had been defined by 'the what' for so long that I let it affected on how I saw myself for years. Now I have the understanding that to identify myself just by "the what" had stopped me from tapping into my highest potential as a human being, but in the past that's the only identity I knew.
To see my point, we need to go way back to the beginning. I was born and raised in a colorblind family where we lived and surrounded ourselves with loving friends and relatives from different beliefs and skin colors, outside the comfortable home, people weren't so colorblind, it was a daily wrestle for a dark skinned teenage girl who came from marginalized ethnicities. In the realm of gender, as in any other household I knew at that time, gender segregation was deeply rooted, where it was totally normal to be silenced in the family meeting and asked to go to the kitchen to help with other female members of the family or had your whole life planned by the entire member of the family but not by you or had to work harder than other just to show that you had a right to get higher education as an option rather than to be married off after you had acquired the basic skill of math, writing and reading. Long story short, since very young age, I have had my fair share of unpleasant experiences of stereotype, prejudice and harassment due to my skin color, ethnicities, and gender.
I was and may still be identified by someone else based on immutable characteristics and skin deep identity. To be identified that way, it's devastating, because I know that no matter how valuable or impactful my contribution to the community or to the world, people would only see my skin color, race, and gender, and it's not fair because what I contribute and what drive me to do it has nothing to do with all those things. To be identified or judged based on skin color, gender and race, and to receive any ‘special’ treatment based on those, feels so degrading and undignified for me. I am part of the human race which means I have equal rights and opportunities like anyone else, and I would like to be identified from my intrinsic values such as the content of characters, which is in my opinion is my own personal responsibility to build and develop.
Coming to this realization, I search for more way and reliable sources to identify myself, to re-Discovering myself. And yes, the journey of finding yourself is the most difficult and intriguing process. And personally, I think it will never end. It's an interesting source of learning, and a gateway to understand the world better. After all, who else has the biggest interest and necessity of knowing ourselves, it is us. We need to know our true identity that is more than skin color, race and gender, to learn about ourselves, because how we see ourselves would influence on how we see someone else, and how we love ourselves would impact on how we love other people, and it'd impact on how we contribute to make the world a better place. So let me take you down to the path where I have my own journey to re-discover myself, with the purpose of loving myself. It's not perfect but these are the 7 lessons I take and still learning until this day. Hopefully you may find your own way of re-discovering yourself.
Lesson #1 Be honest about your light and shadows
One has within oneself great qualities that been gifted by life and experience such as good characters, intelligence, emotional maturity and so on. It's our own duty to recognize these qualities and cultivate it for the benefit of ourselves or others. In the other hand, there are 'not so great' qualities or flaws we got from past traumas, unfortunate events, tragedies and so on. Wouldn't it be amazing if everyone is perfect and just born in a such way that everyone born to bring light and happiness into the world. In a perfect world, it's possible. In our world, it's not possible. No human is perfect. No matter how good the person is, flaws will always be part of life. To think that we are perfect is totally delusional and that thought can be destructive. People are messy and we’re living in a fallen world. To understand this concept of imperfection is what keeping me grounded, and it's humbling. These 'not so great' qualities are part of us, and it's crucial to be honest and to recognize our own 'monster', and utilize it to enrich our view of life.
Lesson #2 Make peace with yourself and the world
Sometimes life isn't as we expected to be. Humanity would, still and will keep failing us. To find ourselves in the direction of resentment towards everything that happen in our life or towards everyone in our life is toxic. Resentment brings nothing but more resentment. When we deal with our life in resentment, the only outcome expected is darkness and pain. So I decided at one point of my life to let go and accept the reality how messy people could be and even though I don't understand why someone could caused so much pain that may ended up in the resentment, I learn that life is so much better to forgive and move on with our life. In this lesson, I understand the boundaries I have and how I am able to stretch the grace and have the capability to take the higher road rather than bury myself in resentment.
Lesson #3 Take responsibilities
To what degree we could be taken responsibilities in life? Well, babies couldn't be taken any responsibilities with their own life yet, they can't even feed themselves. One who is mature is responsible for one's thoughts, speeches and actions. I think taking responsibility is one of the indication of maturity. An example of taking responsibility is to take control and not letting any traumatic experiences in the past to define you. Owning up to the decisions we had made in the course of life also part of responsibility. Nobody can make us think, say and do things we don’t want unless we allow them. I believe responsible people can contribute better and more impactful than people who keep on living in the trap of victimhood.
Lesson #4 You are your own fair comparison
Comparison is the worst enemy of self development. Using other people's accomplishment as the standard to move forward for me just never always the best way. Often the result is not motivation to progress but the feeling of inadequacy or failure or unproductive jealousy. Speaking of fairness, measuring ourselves based on other individual who have different walk of life, background and life experiences from us wouldn't give us the fair outcome. So to whom we may compare ourselves with, it's ourselves. Ideally, we are progressing as individual in many aspects in life, where we could find ourselves in different place as we were one year ago. To motivate myself, I use myself in the past as a measurement to see how far I've come, and that's aspiring me to be the better me and not anyone else.
Lesson #5 Surround yourself with the 'right' people
In the era of social media and constant connectivity, sometimes we thought we have all the connections we have in life, we thought we have people who would be there in all seasons of our lives, sadly sometimes it's only happen virtually but never in reality. We tend to show the window dressing version of ourselves in the social media. This version of our self representation had been carefully curated and overly edited so the world could see us in the best light in which of course, wouldn’t give us the satisfaction of the real relationship. Having real and right people around us means we have a safety net in life. And life is more rich when I can talk and share ideas with people who are willing to listen, to have a healthy conversation and occasionally to push us into a constructive debate. So, I think one of the thing that important is to surround ourselves with the people who honest to themselves and care enough to be honest and kind to you. And that's the key to self growth.
Lesson #6 Treat each era in your life for what it deserves
All of us have "ghosts" from the past, the presence and the future. In my journey of re-Discovering myself, I found that it's important to treat each era or "ghosts" for what it deserves. So, I learn from the past, grateful for the presence, and intentional about the future, all in the spirit of aiming for the better and higher quality in life.
Lesson #7 Keep learning and willing to transform
Last but not least, the seventh lesson, life is an endless process of learning and the world is not perfect and so chaotic which means there's always a room to improvement. I found that it’s important to have the humility to keep learning and be open to new ideas and approaches. Once we understand our place and have a strong sense of identity which valued by the content of our character, we will transform ourselves to the right direction and in the process be aligned with our life purpose. (V)