Begin Again

Beginnings are… scary.

When people use the saying “when one door closes, another one opens” they usually don’t have a string of idea where that open door will lead, and that’s the scary part, the uncertainty. Whether it’s starting a new job, or a new relationship, or a new hobby, the feeling of uncertainty may be overwhelming to the point of paralysis.

More often than not, we don’t like the idea of starting from scratch. We don’t like starting from a blank piece of paper and not knowing what to write in it. Our anxiety often gets the hold of us and overloads our thought registry with stuff like “Dude, what if you fail? What if you make a fool out of yourself? What if your new business fails and you go bankrupt? What if it doesn’t work out and you’ll go home crying your mascara out again?”

It was easier when we were kids because we could always erase our pencil marks significantly with erasers. It takes a long while for our erasers to destroy the integrity of the paper, and like with society, the mistakes we often commit are easily pardoned to a significant degree, because back then, we were “kids just being kids”. The consequences of our mistakes then were paid and insured by parents. We used paper with lines to guide us while writing, because we needed to be supervised by our parents back then.

Photo by Kim Gorga on Unsplash

Growing up, the stationary we use changes. Once we become adults, our pencils are replaced with pens, symbolizing the responsibility that the mistakes we commit from now on cannot be erased that easily. There are no more lines on the paper we use anymore symbolizing that as adults, we don’t need our parent’s overall supervision anymore. We are expected to act a certain way, to be accountable for our actions, because we are already functioning members of society.

But as humans, we often forget that we are not immune to making mistakes. Some of these mistakes seem harmless, while some are catastrophic and what we do when we make a mistake in ink is we usually cover it up with white tape or white ink. Unlike erasing pencil marks with an eraser, it’s usually more difficult. The integrity of the paper is easily destroyed by the white ink, just like how society is going to start doubting our integrity when we are caught trying to cover up our mistakes.

That’s the root cause of all the pressure, that’s the root cause of the fear -- our own and everyone else’s expectations that once we become adults, we’re supposed to have our lives intact, or the very least, we’re going to have a direction.

No room for mistakes. Perfection.

Photo by Erol Ahmed on Unsplash

Perfection is a funny word. Perfection doesn’t even exist. It’s an unrealistic human construct.

That’s why some people look for perfection in the divine because human beings are too flawed to even grasp the concept of it. If we talk about standards, standards are social constructs as well.

The perfect body. The perfect hair. The perfect skin. The perfect sense of fashion. The perfect appearance. The perfect this and that. 

Photo by Mehrdad Haghighi on Unsplash

The list goes on and on, to be honest. Most people can handling this poorly can go in either of the two ways:

1.  Lose their minds trying to chase after these standards, so they can try and please everybody.

2.     Lose their minds ruminating of being scum of the society and be miserable because they are unable to meet whatever society expects of them.

It all leads back to the basic idea of “what will everyone say or think, if I did this or that?”. To a certain degree, societal conditioning is healthy. Human beings are social creatures and often need validation from other beings to a certain degree. It’s in order to prevent ourselves from potential embarrassment, committing heinous crimes, or grave mistakes that might put themselves and everyone around them in danger.

Photo by Priscilla Du Preez on Unsplash

It becomes unhealthy however when people live their whole lives around this statement, becoming rigid or inflexible and dragging other people down with them in their projected constructs.

The type of people you see constantly gossiping or talking badly about other people if they don’t conform to what they think “should be” are probably the part of the most boring and unoriginal groups of people you see in society. “She should be wearing less makeup.” “He should not be dating her because she is not part of the church” “She should be more feminine” “He should not be joining the pageant because he’s too fat” and so on.

I remember one time, my grandmother had an argument with one of her friends, and these friends of hers have a tendency to be critical and gossipy like the people I mentioned earlier. The argument escalated to a point where both sides started attacking each other personally. Until they started throwing in their grand kids in their arguments. The person started mentioning how despite being intelligent for my age at that time, doesn’t give a care in the world in making myself look presentable. 

How I look like on most days except for the clown makeup

WELL, TRUE. HAHAHA. Back then, I was a kid with zero interest in trying to make myself look good. You can call them my rebellious teenage years, hahaha. It’s only when I entered adulthood that I graced myself with the feminine arts of skin care, makeup, fitness and being well-dressed. My grandma and her friend reconciled of course. It happened such a long time ago but I still find it so funny these days of how humans can be gossipy and critical like that 😁, myself included.

Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

The more I reflect on that scenario however, the more I thought about how too much of the criticism and negativity could dampen one’s morale. I would be lying if I said that I haven’t been at both ends. I’ve been the critic and the criticized, and that’s kind of the reason why I’m proactively trying to minimize my gossipy and negativity sponge tendencies after being enlightened.

While I keep reflecting on it, I came to a conclusion that conforming to whatever constructs we live with might, nine out of ten, save us from potential embarrassment. However, if we don’t try to keep a more open mind, society would not evolve. In fact, we would not evolve.

The thing is, people are going to say something about you no matter what you do, or what you wear or how you act, even if it has absolutely nothing to do with them. You will always be criticized for doing something or not doing anything, so might as well do the things you like doing and the things you can be proud of when you are in your 80s because you can’t keep living your life pleasing everyone. It’s one of the saddest ways to live the one gift the God of the Universe has given you -- your life -- so as long as you're not stepping on other people's freedom and boundaries, as long as you're not hurting anyone, go ride that roller coaster, eat that cotton candy, take that dance class or enter that pageant.

I think all of you are already aware that I’ve started taking pole dancing and aerial hoop classes as an investment to fitness. My classes opened up a lot of opportunities for me to get to know amazing people and one of them is the co-owner of the studio, Juli Ponder.

www.joseph-ong.com

She is way past her twenties, a full-time mom to three kids, and is a fitness instructor in pole dancing. A lot of people describe her as a woman of steel, complete with a six-pack and the strength and flexibility, any girl (including myself) would yearn for. She inspires girls and women like myself to appreciate and celebrate the God-given magic of their own sexuality.

A lot of people of her age could not dream of having the same angst and ability she has, and of course the way she handles herself invites a lot of scrutiny on her part. In a type of society like ours who looks down on women who are expressive of their sexuality, how much more to a mother of three? Despite all that, she still remains an amazing mom, not only to her three young children but also to her students at the studio.

Personally, it’s these types of people who made me dare myself in taking pole dancing and aerial hoops despite my insecurities and excess body fat. It’s these types of people who chose to go against the current, which inspired me to take the first step in doing something absolutely scary like loving my body and being proud of it despite all its flaws and taking care of it properly.

In all honesty, I think I would be less enthusiastic about something when I see that the people who are going to be responsible teaching me aren't living up to their own standards. That's why we need certain people who we aspire to be in a certain way. We need these kinds of people who challenge us to be our better selves and challenge us to go beyond our comfort zones, because if we don’t, we would stay stuck in the same place, out of fear of being ridiculed, out of fear of being judged and out of fear of being ostracized.

I am starting to earn bruises from my newfound hobby. It’s okay. It’s all part of the process. The bruises I earn at the studio and in real life are no match for the wisdom that I also earn in getting them along the way.

Photo by Nicole Honeywill on Unsplash

And if we do lose faith? Let's pray that we'll have the strength to begin again anyway. 😊