Spending the last two months under my parents' roof has unsurprisingly brought back many of my childhood behaviors. Thanks to the commentary of friends, I have been reminded that I am a rebel without a cause. I guess I am a contrarian. A little more than I would like to admit.
As an avid, young, female gymnast, growing up in a patriarchal society that condemned gymnastics as an inappropriate sport was not the most fun. I woke up almost everyday feeling like I had to fight for my freedom. And freedom, to me, meant survival. A life without the personal freedom to make one’s own choices never seemed too attractive to me. I felt a lot of pressure from my community to morph into a certain type of individual who did not feel true to my being. That did not fly for me.
While my contrarian mindset helped me get on my feet at first to fight for the things I wanted, with time and age, I started to notice that making decisions just for the sake of proving others wrong started to consume me more than advance me. I felt it taking over my ability to reason through my decisions. I overlooked the benefits of using the structures that others built before me. I mistook the concept of freedom for building everything on my own from scratch: questioning every norm, tradition, and societal structure. Yet, even as I write, fully aware of the toll that this questioning has taken on me, I still can’t help but question all that’s been handed down to me.
The truth of the matter is that questioning is what I do best, for better or for worse. I even think that my questioning is what has allowed me to achieve what I have set out for myself to do. It has been a filtering mechanism for the things I don’t value. I constantly wonder how many of us live the lives we really want for ourselves versus the lives that others want for us. I also ponder what is it about human nature that makes us so fearful of judgment that we choose to live our lives for others most of the time?
And while finding one’s true essence via questioning is one of the most beautiful, complex, and rewarding challenges of life, I have also learned that going against the tide, just for the sake of going against the tide is not a healthy way to live. When somewhere along the way acts of rebellion made their way into all areas of my life, I came to realize that contradiction for the sake of contradiction was actually the biggest obstacle between me and uncovering my real self. I learned that meaning and fulfillment in life come from a balance of questioning and using the wisdom of those who came before me.
Instead of focusing on proving others wrong, and trying to dim their light in the process, I hope to focus my energy and efforts on shining and refining my own light, so that wherever I go, whoever I interact with, I can inspire someone else to do the same.