New Chapter

Moving on with life

For the longest time, I’ve been feeling afraid. I’m not really sure what exactly I’m afraid of, but I’ve been choosing to avoid certain situations or moments that I thought might put me in an uncomfortable place. And for a while I thought I was doing just fine, or maybe I was just deluding myself with that.

We all make mistakes, nobody’s perfect. I’ve always been one to own up and learn from my mistakes, and that I wouldn’t be who I am as a person today without all my mistakes that I made. So it’s not really that I’m afraid of making another mistake.

Maybe it’s the hurt that was caused by all of my mistakes that I was afraid of. I was afraid of hurting yet another people, and I was also afraid of how they might hurt me. But I realized, this whole time, I’m still hurting. Even with the things that I tried to avoid, I’m still just as afraid — if not, more.

As humans, we will always put our self-interest and self-need first, whether we like to admit it or not. That’s not inherently a bad thing, it’s only bad when our self-interest puts the other person at a disadvantage. I like to think that I’ve never had problem in admitting that I always puts myself first, that the things that I do, I did it for myself. Sure, some of those things might helped people, but I’d be lying if I say that I did it purely for them.

Most of the mistakes that I made, I’d say perhaps about half of them was because I was being selfish, that maybe I’m not being as understanding as I thought I would be. Over the years, I’ve made concerted effort to be less selfish by learning from my mistakes, or at least I thought I did. The fact that I’m still making mistakes, that I’m still hurting, and that I’m still just as afraid means that this is probably just who I am. I don’t know whether I want to believe it or maybe it is a fact, but maybe we can’t really change much about ourselves without staying true to yourself. Sure, an alcoholic or a smoker can get sober and/or quit, and you can always get better and improve as a person, but perhaps there are intrinsic values of oneself that we can’t really change much — if at all.

If this is just who I am as a person, I shouldn’t have any reason to be afraid anymore. For the longest time, I’ve never had any problem accepting myself as who I am, what my vices and virtues are, what I could and could not do. Maybe some days I will feel afraid again, that I might feel lost and have no idea of what to do. But I’ve been down that road many of times, and I’ve always managed to find my way eventually. I might be afraid, but I have no other option than just to put on a brave face and keep on going.

I’ve been beaten up
Broken down
Torn apart to pieces
Only to have myself strung back together
Sewn back whatever remains of my heart
Every time I’m back standing on my feet
I become less of a whole
I’m alive but my inside is slowly chipping away
And I don’t know how much I have left in me
But until the well runs dry
I just have to continue