SOUR LEMONS

I have never been the kind of person who could seamlessly & effortlessly pull off any kind of stunt (okay, I’m not referring to a physical stunt or like a bank robbery stunt..please read between the lines) without it being obvious to the people around me. As such, I find myself having a love hate relationship with friends that are able to do that.. When i was in my 20s, I couldn’t stand people like that. Feel that they are manipulative and they could bend the world to their knees if they chose to. My lack of self esteem was screaming at the top of the mountain shouting “Get the fuck away from these people! You be manipulated without even knowing about it”. And even if I did know I was being manipulated, their SHINE was sometimes too hard to stay away….I mean who wouldn’t be drawn to shiny stuff??

I have come to realize that it wasn’t really that I couldn’t stand people like that. It was more that I couldn’t stand feeling how inadequate I felt in the presence of such SHINING people. Like having a sour taste in my mouth. Why can some people just SHINE so effortlessly & why can’t I SHINE the same way? The key word here is effortlessly…

Getting older does have its perks. For starters, while I will never be the person with 100% confidence right in my bones, getting older and life’s experiences has shaped me to be comfortable & confident in my own skin, in the line of work I do & with how I view the world and the people around me.

Also, I just chose not to care as much or be bothered as much by what people do. Some days are harder but overall, I mostly feel pretty at peace with myself. The days I don’t, oh well, they are okay too. Life ain’t perfect. That’s when I connect with my SHINING PEOPLE 🙂 & they help dust me off and sometimes scrub my skin really hard too until I SHINE like a fucking Care Bear…..By the way, I do love Care Bears…

But in the process of getting older, I have also discovered that underneath that SHINE is also a real loving, awesome, flawed & imperfect human being like myself too immersed in all of our life dreams, aspirations, regrets, insecurities and worries. Underneath every different set of life and troubles, we are fundamentally all the same. We all want to make a better life for ourselves and family. We all want to move forward and not backwards. Yes. A lot of times, our actions contradict with our true intentions but that’s just because we are all flawed and that’s okay. But fundamentally, we all want the same Holy Grail – to live our days with joy, happiness and purpose.

I have also come to realize at my mid 30s that I have my own SHINE too. Maybe my SHINE isn’t as effortless but I SHINE nevertheless. We just SHINE differently and that is okay and there are sooo many merits to being different.

Through my SHINING friends, I see my weaknesses, where I am lacking, where I can better myself but I also very clearly see my own SHINING strengths that I never thought I had when I was in my 20s. And I know for a fact that my SHINING friends think I SHINE too, sometimes in ways that they could learn from as well.

With that, I end my very first blog post with no sour taste in my mouth 🙂