5/22

--We are bombarded and overwhelmed with a surplus of useless information to keep our minds distracted, always jumping from topic to topic, never fully listening to ourselves--

--But we’re taught to be afraid of solitude, because those at the top know the power that lies in a person who knows themselves.--

Whether I realize it or not, this has been going for years in my life. Expectation, pride, ego, and sometimes the most powerful is, people’s opinion of us. I become what people expect us to be not who I want to be. I listen to what other people said more than my own tiny voice inside of my own hearts. So, the consequence is, I keep feeling miserable because I’m contradicting myself each day. I feel miserable too when I cannot fulfill the thing that, at first, I thought to be the cure of this depression, when it’s actually not. I’m just feeding my pride and ego, but not my soul.

Also now in this society, we were shamed if we don’t have someone special who we can call boyfriend or girlfriend. In family gathering, the topic of your academic will only be mentioned briefly while the rest of the talk was about your personal life. For those who don’t have that special someone will be getting nasty comment like “Masa umur segini belum punya pacar?” and such.

What got me thinking was, how far do you actually know yourself? Have you already known yourself so deeply and thoroughly, so you decided that it’s time to start to getting knew another person? I doubt that. Because when you actually know someone or something, you would do everything in your power to protect it. Imagine when you see a stray cat vs a cat, that you knew or played with before, being bullied by a bunch of kids. Of course your first instinct was to protect it, but you would feel more strongly for the later because it means something to you. The same logic can be applied here. If you really know yourself, you wouldn’t do something that would hurt yourself, like keep chasing people who don’t give a damn about you or even staying in a toxic relationship.

I don’t want to be a hypocrite. I do think now that I don’t know myself enough, I keep doing things that hurt me. like drowning myself on sad songs or stories, and I’m addicted to it. I also think that being alone is scary. Not having someone to depend on is horrifying. Driven by this fear, I keep searching for a person who matches the perfect image in my mind and keep failing miserably, and ended up getting hurt over and over. So maybe now, it’s time to stop this useless Quest and focus on getting to know myself better so that I can protect myself better.

I’m sorry for being so harsh on you, all this years, Self. I’m sorry for listening to what other people said, instead of listening to you. I’m sorry that I couldn’t protect you better. Maybe not instant, but I will try to change. Everything.

Inspired by this painfull honest article written by Diana Ozoria