Hey everyone, good evening (or good morning, depending when you are reading this)! After a few days of thinking about whether to keep posting everyday for lent, I have decided not to do so. That is because I know I will be writing for the sake of writing. I’ve written so much since the inception of this blog that I now realised I hold myself to this standard no one even holds me up to. It’s a standard that I have set for myself. I can’t say that I’m a perfectionist but sometimes, I set the bar so high that I find myself not being able to jump over it but tripping right before I take the leap. Not once, not twice, but over and over again.

Maybe it’s the Asian genes that runs in me. Maybe it’s the standard set by society. At the end of the day, I’m the barrier to myself.

I remembered this conversation that I had with a high school friend a while back. We were chatting about how are things. After he told me how he was doing, he said to me, “For you, I don’t need to ask, Augie always perform,” which loosely translates to “I don’t need to ask how are you because you always have it all together,”

The truth is I don’t. I don’t have it all together a lot of times. There are days where I feel like crying because things aren’t going the way they can be. Sometimes, there are days where I know I can do better and I keep asking myself why can’t I be better. I strive for perfection and fight for my ideals but after reflection over the past few months, I realised I’m missing the point completely.

I can never be perfect and no one else can ever be. In beating ourselves up because we are not this ideal person we imagine ourselves as, we are going against everything humanity is. To err is to be human. The very nature of being human is that we are incomplete and not self-sufficient. The moment we were born to this world, our first instinct is to cry because we recognised the need of others.

I may never be perfect but it doesn’t mean I can’t try. The lesson I am learning is that we need to accept ourselves as we are and that’s how we are able to grow. When we accept our flaws as a result of our own limitations, we start to immerse our hearts in humility. St. Therese speaks of this and tells us to be as little as possible! What does this mean? She says, “It means not being discouraged by our faults, because children often fall over, but they are so little they don’t hurt themselves badly,”

Alas, it is our pride that hurts us the most. We are embarrassed to fall as we grow older because we have put ourselves on a pedestal so high that we can’t see who we really are anymore.

I still hold myself to a high standard but I also know it’s okay if I can’t give a hundred percent each time as long as I trust God to help me give the whole of myself each time.

That’s all from me today. Wherever you are, don’t lose hope! I am reminding you today and one day, you will remind me too! Have a good day everyone!

 

 

Tell me what you want to hear
Something that will light those ears
Sick of all the insincere
I’m gonna give all my secrets away
This time, don’t need another perfect lie
Don’t care if critics ever jump in line
I’m gonna give all my secrets away

Secrets ~ One Republic

Secrets has to be truly one of my favourite songs of all time. I honestly don’t know why is that. Maybe it’s the violin backdrop which lends it an element of freshness a lot of songs didn’t have then and it stood out. The lyrical genius that is Ryan Tedder is also at his finest in this one.

The last line in the chorus, ‘I’m gonna give all my secrets away’ has to be one of the scariest things to say. How can one fully give all their secrets away?  Can we ever really? In an interview Stephen Colbert did with Charlie Rose, Charlie Rose started off by saying this:

“Lonely is nothing I’ve ever known. You could be alone but never lonely. When I’m alone, I find it a joyful time. At the same time, I’m anxious to be with people, with friends and sharing experiences,”

“You don’t want to just need ‘I need Charlie Rose time’?

“I do. That’s what I mean. I don’t mind being alone.”

“But you’re never lonely?”

“Never lonely.”

“Wow.”

After a slight interruption by the audience, Stephen proceeded with the following reply:

“I’m a very lonely person.”

“Are you really?”

“I do get lonely sometimes.”

“You feel depressed? You feel sad?”

“To be a human being is to be alone, I mean I have an awareness of my inability at times to connect with other people because I can’t say exactly what I mean. The inability to fully love another person is a form of loneliness”

“Are you incapable of fully loving another person?”

“I don’t know how to fully love another person because there’s always some part of me that I’m not sharing. There’s always some part of me I don’t know how to open up and give to another person. Even with the people I love the most.”

Just read over this again, ‘The inability to fully love another person is a form of loneliness,’. That’s some hard hitting stuff right there. The ‘some part of us’ can never share are our secrets. We know and feel it every time we talk to people. We can feel that we are not entirely there because only a part of us is connecting emotionally with the person. If our friends and family know our inner deepest stories, we feel more at ease to love the person. It is only when our hearts has revealed everything from its core and vice versa, only then can we fully love someone.

We have secrets because we are ashamed of our sins and mistakes. Some of us may have them because we are afraid of what will happen when other people know them. We are afraid of being judged and looked upon unkindly. I have them. You have them. The worst secrets though, are the ones that we keep from ourselves.

We don’t want to accept our past and our lingering questions. In a way, we are not fully capable of loving ourselves too because we are always running away from who we are. I think only when we accept ourselves for who we truly are, can we fully love other people too.

I should know because I struggle with that too.

The sharing of our secrets is a little like peeling of an onion. An onion consist of many layers and with each layer shed, we begin to see its true skin. With each layer shed, the tears may come along with it but so does the grace of healing.

Secrets. A conundrum, a mystery, a sense of intrigue, a sense of insincerity but more importantly, it is the very thing that stands between us and love.