15 July, 2012

Contradictions on a Sunday (with a cup of coffee)

One of my current favorite words is "resilience." I don't know the exact definition but I've been able to witness this characteristic in the people of Vietnam and my family in the last three years. Resilience. I would equate the word to "undying strength" or the "ability to overcome difficulty" or perhaps "the ability to come out stronger, brighter despite darkness" or "the ability to stay gold, to hold onto one's core" And while I see people's resilience, their goodness, sometimes I have trouble in trying to make others realize it. Sadly, I began to realize that resilience is not easy to see and not everyone can see it or choose to see it. Instead part of the world is obsessed with what is at the surface, a part of the world remains judgmental, degrading, and finds their self worth in others opinions.

I've had this conversation with friends, and while I know people are complex, that what we see is not what really is, sometimes you must complain, sometimes you gotta just say it as it is and sometimes you just can't be the observer anymore. People who find their self worth manifested in materialistic objects must feel so empty. Yet, I know it's not easy to bring this up to people and it may go something like this:

Look at my purse, it's blah blah blah money.
And?
But it's the newest line and blah blah blah.
Okay...

Growing up I devalued my self worth. I did not believe myself to be worthy of whatever it is that I so deserved. As a child, we are consistently being told that we are not enough, we are not cool and so thought this that it took me years to overcome it. Perhaps this is why I am so vent on trying to figure out how I can make people realize their own potential and to overcome any internalized hatred they have towards themselves. This is not an easy matter. You can't just tell someone to get over it. You just can't tell people that yeah, you should get over your internalized hatred and have that be the solutions. Step one is the realization. Step two is the awareness. The next steps towards change or transformation, towards actualization is uncountable and everyone goes through a different path - this much I know. Finally, before I can even work on helping others realize their full potential I must work on mine constantly. This delicate balance is what so "tires" me.

The beauty is to realize that life is about this process, this uncountable process of change and difficulty, of contradictions and embarrassment, of risks and successes. At this point in time, this is what life is to me.

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connect the dots now, ya' hear.



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