For nearly a year, I haven't posted much on this blog. To be honest, I've been lazy. I didn't really feel like updating this blog. I was busy studying Chinese and Japanese languages for the last year or so. Even though it may look like to some of you people that I'm having to good life over here in Korea, I have been keeping myself quite busy. Now, taking a gap year has been very nice indeed. I never had to take any finals and do projects that were graded. Not having any pressure on me has been a novel experience, and a one that I enjoyed very much. But now, I must return to United States to FINALLY begin my college life.
I've been trying lots of new things over the last year or so. Things I didn't have the time or the will to do in high school. I tried working out (Semi-successful, but no 6-pack yet), learning the piano, learning new languages. It has been awesome doing the things that I wanted to do instead or the things I needed to do. But most importantly, I think by taking some time off and reflecting on myself, I gained a new perspective on myself and on my goals.
I looked backed on myself a lot over the last year. Trying to figure out what mistakes I have made in my life so far and how I could go about becoming a person that I wanted to be in the future. This task wasn't really that hard; especially when my mother was constantly preaching to me. Truth be told, I'm not exactly at the state where I want to be right now. I thought I was a better person than who I turned out to be in high-school. Soon, I realized where I went wrong. My fundamental problem was pride.
In high-school, I was surrounded by a lot of smart people. And for some reason, I started to think that I was some kind of a genius as well. Believing in a false image of myself, I didn't necessarily try that hard. I thought things would naturally go the way I wanted all the time. Even when the reports cards started to show that I wasn't necessarily the sharpest crayon in the tool-shed, I still believed that things would naturally work out for the best. My pride was always what got the best of me. The pride always justified my lazy and stupid actions. The belief that I was the best always got the better of me, and I never worked to actually become the best.
Now, I am an extremely arrogant guy, so the process to break my pride wasn't that easy. Some people have awesome battles against themselves (at least in literature), but mine was quite pathetic. It was a long, painful, and ultimately a stupid process. No matter what I told myself, no matter what evidence I saw, I never refused to believe that I was a genius and that my destiny was to be the best. As Jack Nicholson would put it I couldn't "HANDLE THE TRUTH". A lazy fool who believes that he's a genius, is there anything sadder than that? In the end, it wasn't some single major that showed me that I was a fool, but the realization of what I wanted to become that changed me.
What is a hero? Well, that's a really complex topic and I would have to start a entire rant just to describe what I think a hero truly is, but one aspect I would like to focus on today is perseverance. A Hero never gives up and continues strive for his goal no matter the odds, and ultimately achieves his goal. You know the saying "Hard-work beats talent"? Ever since I was little, I really believed in that message. No matter what happens to real people in society, hard-work will always beat talent. That was the justice that I believe in.
I had been a hypocrite. I had been acting like talent beats hard-work all this time. All this time, I acted like some villain that insults the hero by saying that he is superior and that no one could hope to match his strength. I was never the genius hero that I foolishly believed in, but a idiotic villain instead. And hypocrisy is something that no one can stand right? If I have to be evil, so be it. But I would never pretend to be good while I was evil. Not even the realization of my hypocrisy changed me in an instant, but my arrogance no longer barred my path. I didn't convince myself that I was a fool, that I wanted to become persevering hero who saves the world through his will alone.
Thus, I never truly defeated my arrogance. I continue to believe I am some kind of a genius somewhere deep down inside me, but I have forced my arrogance to compromise at the very least. Hard-work WILL be necessary in the future, and I cannot go around it by saying that I can do something without working for it, for perseverance is part of the very ideal that I strive for.
Next week I head for America. On one hand, I'm really scared. I fear that my skills have atrophied over time and that I will fail when I start college. I'm also scared of the fact that I have wasted my gap year and didn't accomplish anything. This period of peace I have had is finally ending, and I fear that once I begin feeling the pressure again, I will crack. On the other hand, I finally determined how I should become what I want to be, and that has given me new strength (or so I like to think anyway :)). Now, It's not my arrogance that tells me that I'm great, but my childish dream of becoming a hero that tells me to work hard for my goals and to change to world.
Now what I wrote is indeed childish. I think in a child like way when I should be thinking like an adult. People always tell me to grow up, and my parents often tell me that the fact that I'm not where I want to be in my life is because I think and act like a child. I'm not necessarily proud of my childish self either. It's kinda embarrassing to write a post like this. But unfortunately, this is what I am and I feel better by writing myself out.
Thanks if you've still been reading this blog! I'll update often from now on!
~JC
Here's some music I listened to while I wrote this post.
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