New Beginnings
I have always been infatuated with the idea of new beginnings. Whether it was changing schools, or moving to a different country or even the start of a new year, I always found myself being one of those people shouting, “new year, new me!” They say we must all listen to our subconscious, that something deep inside us knows things that we don’t already consciously know — I never did that. I never stopped to ask myself why I had the constant need to change who I was whenever I got the chance, but beyond that, I never bothered to ask myself why I could never actually pull it off.
Certainly, we all have our vices — some are more prominent than others. I just never wanted to be the person who doesn’t know that I am a slave to my environment, which is what most people are.
We are all afraid of change. Change brings with it a certain mystery that we cannot contend with. This the very opposite of what we need. Change is chaos where humans crave order, but humans are anything but adaptive. That last part may be arguable, given that ever since we developed the means to shape our world to suit us, we have become less and less adaptive. So, one day, I stopped and asked myself what it was about the prospect of getting to start afresh with a blank slate that appealed so much to me. The best answer I could come up with was that it gave me the chance to redefine myself. I have always been a soul-searcher, really. While, for most of my childhood, I prided myself in my ability to fit in with different crowds, as I grew older, I found myself lacking any sense of identity. I had no certainty about who I was in reality. I hung out with all kinds of people — those who smoked and drank, and those who were dream chasers who spent their time studying or trying to start their own businesses. Somehow, I found myself able to fit in with both crowds seamlessly. Despite this, I still felt better around one of those groups than I did around the other and that was not because I had a negative opinion of the other. In fact, I loved all my friends for who they were, not because of what they did, and I still do, equally. The problem was very much with my own sense of identity, or lack of it, really. Being around people whose habits did not align with what I wanted for myself only posed a problem for me because I could not be the steadfast person who could resist the allure of those bad habits.
My first experience of this was during my first stint in university. I spent the entire first semester binge drinking with my friends, going out every single weekend. In reality, I did not enjoy it that much, but I still did it, because I had grown up in a culture that glorified it so much and because, I could not go out as freely when I was at home, I had to capitalize. A couple months into the first semester and a few blackouts later, I began to wonder why on Earth I was living like that. It took an entire summer vacation holed up in my room and a subsequent hair cut (I had dreadlocks before the hair cut), for me to decide to take back control of my life. I spent the entire second semester avoiding the people who I had been hanging out with because whenever I saw them, they expected me to participate in the binge drinking and smoking. The funny thing is that I have absolutely nothing against these people. Beyond everything else, they are all amazing people, and, in an ideal world, we could all be friends without expecting the other to conform to our own world views. Regardless, I spent a further three months at that school avoiding everyone, before making the decision to leave, without saying goodbye.
Leaving was, at the time, the best decision I had ever made. I was lonely and depressed. The new beginning that I had wanted for myself at the beginning of the semester, with the new haircut, revised wardrobe and even slightly jacked body had not done much to change people’s image of me, I had to start afresh. I moved again, going halfway across the world, to repeat the same mistakes. It is true that old habits die hard, but, at some point, you have to kick yourself for being repetitively stupid. How could I allow myself to fall into the very same traps as I had before? I was supposed to be the older one among my peers; the experienced one, the one who would be the voice of reason, but my lack of a sense of self was laid bare for all to see once more, and instead of continuing on the upward spiral I had been on at the time I left my previous school, I found myself 10 steps back again. In reality, we all struggle to resist the downward pull of those around us. Society can be very demanding, and we are constantly bombarded by messages telling us to conform and fit in to the mold. No one wants to be an outcast and this is what peer pressure is. As a teenager I was told to worry about peer pressure but its not always as explicit as they made it out to be. Your friends don’t necessarily have to hand you a cigarette or a bottle of beer for you to feel pressured to join in. Sometimes fear of missing out kicks in, and the sight of them seemingly having so much fun with no inhibitions whatsoever is enough for us to throw our own reservations out the window. My second attempt at a new beginning had failed, but I was not going to give up that easily.
I took my third chance at a new beginning with open arms. This time, I was not going to let anything stop me. I started to avoid putting myself in situations where I was tempted to live a life that was not in accordance to my own beliefs and preferences. To be honest, I have never been happier in my life. I don’t miss the drinking and partying and staying up all night in loud, crowded nightclubs. That looked so appealing whenever I saw it on television, but in reality, its not the best lifestyle and that’s not just because of the toll it takes on one’s health. It’s so difficult for anyone to really live authentically in today’s modern age. We are bombarded with subtle imagery, from social media to the movies and tv shows we watch, there is always some very negative behavior being glorified in a way that makes it seem so appealing. If you see a group of smokers gathered around chatting and smoking, you could never imagine that they are basically committing slow suicide.
My obsession, ever since I was teenager was to live authentically. All I have is my life, and I’ll be damned if one day, at 60, I look back on it and realize that nothing I did was my choice but was simply the result of the influences of everything and everyone around me. Now, don’t get me wrong, this isn’t the free-will debate. Certainly, we all have our vices — some are more prominent than others. I just never wanted to be the person who doesn’t know that I am a slave to my environment, which is what most people are. The unfortunate thing, however, is that I have always been a coward. Like most people, whether or not they will admit it is a different issue altogether, but we constantly betray ourselves just to be accepted. This will not be the confessional that it should be, but there is a lot of myself that I keep hidden out of fear of judgement. The worst part is that my fear is not totally unfounded. Two years ago, I told someone about my views on a certain issue and they just stopped replying my texts. I sent two more text messages after that and never got a text back. I cannot blame this person for their reaction — everyone has the right to remove people they consider to be toxic from their lives. The unfortunate part is that while this is often the reasoning that is used, the truth of the matter is that we cannot bear to have people whose opinions differ greatly from our own around us because we are afraid our minds will change. I am more afraid of losing the people around me than I am of living a lie. I always used to quote the Wiz Khalifa line: “tired of saying shit to make these people understand, so I’ll just be everything you say I am.” This was my favorite line as a teenager, but now it doesn’t cut it anymore. I cannot continue to take the form of whatever container I am placed in. I’m not advocating for rigidity, but I am saying that a strong sense of self is so important. Human beings are constantly changing, evolving, and the more we try to hide that fact, the more tortured of an existence we will continue to live. People grow and they change and the things they used to enjoy become the things that bore the life out of them and that should be okay. It should be okay for me to say I don’t like that anymore or I don’t believe that anymore without getting scornful looks or scoffs. It would be nice for people to accept each other both with their differences and similarities. And, maybe they do. Maybe none of my friends would judge me for most of my views, or look at me differently because I have a blog or because I want to be a writer and don’t care about becoming rich and famous. Maybe they won’t judge me because I am in love and I am not afraid to show it in a generation that’s so proudly afraid of love. Maybe they wont judge me because I choose not to drink or because I don’t care about having the nicest shoes or the latest phone. Maybe they won’t look at me and say “damn, you’ve changed” when I turn down a beer. Maybe, but I may never know. I may never know because it is much easier for me to run than it is for me to let people see the real me. After all, what if they don’t like what they see? Then, what? It’s easy to let people love or hate a façade, at least then I can comfort myself with the hope that they would have loved the real me if only they knew me.
I started 2020 under no false impressions that this new year would be a new beginning. I am exactly where I want to be, and I have never been happier. I have religious, political and social opinions too, and I am proud of them. Whether or not you agree with them, we can still be friends. We can argue about it and its unlikely that I’ll let you babysit my kids, but we’ll still be friends. So, as this decade begins, it’s aluta continua for me. Nothing was the same, but nothing was changed either.
