The Only Thing to Fear

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us most. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and famous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in all of us. And when we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others .”

–Nelson Mandela

This is one of my favorite quotes of all time.  Truthfully, I skim over the God part because I’m not religious, but the quote still resonates within me.  As I wrote yesterday, I am much more comfortable dwelling on my negatives than I am on my positives.   Why?  I am not entirely sure, but this much I know.  I grew up in a household where one did not say anything nice about oneself.  In addition, any time one were to give a compliment to someone else, it immediately had to be followed up with a qualifier.  Part of this is, no doubt, steeped in the Asian belief that if one brags about one’s children, then the gods will get angry and do something horrible to said children.  –

The one example of this is when I graduated from college magna cum laude.  I was also Phi Beta and had a slew of other honors after my name.  The first thing my mom said to me after the ceremony was, “It’s too bad you didn’t do so well in your first semester because then you could have graduated summa cum laude.”  I was crushed.  In that instant, everything I had accomplished in college meant nothing.  I confronted her about it years later, and she didn’t even remember that she had said it.  She added, “If I did, it was probably because I thought you might be feeling bad about not graduating summa, so I was trying to make you feel better.”

Compassion, FAIL!

In addition, I come from a long line of perfectionists.  It’s a habit I am trying to break, but it runs pretty deeply.  Ironically, it’s with the help of my nephew that I might be able to lick this thing.  See, he is OCD and has to have things exactly the way he wants them.  He is an uber-perfectionist (comes by it honestly as both sides of his family are that way), and he melts down catastrophically if everyone doesn’t read his mind.  The other day, we were snuggled up on the couch reading an I Spy book in which you have to search for things hidden in the pictures.  Now, I play Hidden Object Games (HOG, appropriately), and I am very perfectionistic when I play the games.  If I was reading the same book with my niece, she would have insisted on finding every item.  The difference is, she wouldn’t have freaked out if she couldn’t find a particular object the way my nephew would.

So, I made the conscious decision to make the search fun.  If we couldn’t find something, I would say, “I’m done with this page.  How about you?”  He would agree, and we would move on.  Or, he would say, “Pass!”, and we would turn the page.  This is completely unlike me, and it was liberating to do.  I was deliberately practicing non-perfection, and it felt good, damn it.

So.  Back to my theme of fearing success rather than failure.  Ladies, I want to talk to you privately for a minute.  You see, Kel wrote an excellent comment on the previous blog entry, and it’s something I’ve thought about often.  You see, ladies, we are our own worst enemies.  For all the shit that men can do to us, they can’t hold a candle to the shit we do to ourselves–and each other.

You know what I’m talking about.  If you’ve ever listened to a group of women, it’s not long before the topic of weight and looks come up.  One woman will complain about being fat.  The next woman will rush to say, no no, you’re not fat, I am fat.  It becomes a “who’s the biggest cow” competition in which no one is the winner.  Or, a group of women will sit around and tear down every woman who walks by.  “Did you see that dress she’s wearing?  What was she thinking?”  “Oh, she should not be wearing horizontal stripes, not with those hips.”

I have often thought that if women put as much energy into changing our world as we did into changing our bodies, we could accomplish some pretty fucking amazing things.

So.  Ladies.  I have a challenge for you myself.  Two, actually.  After you read this post, I want you to write a love poem to yourself.  Or a love prose poem.  Or a love letter.  It doesn’t matter.  Look at yourself as you would your best female friend and let the love flow.   You can write about your general awesomeness or about something in particular.  I’ll start.

I love the curve of my hips.  I love the way they sway as I walk, especially if I’m wearing platform shoes.  Black, of course.  I walk with confidence, head up, shoulders back, tits out.  My hair streams down my back as I stride, and my eyes are shielded from the sun by my prescription sunglasses.  I am eye-catching, this I know.  With my breasts, my hair, my tats, and yes, when it appears, my smile, I stand out among the blonde Scandinavians who populate Minnesota.

I love my brain.  I love how quirky, involved, creative, and curious it is.  No topic is off-limits to it, even if the better part of discretion stops me from voicing opinions of said topic out loud.  I am autonomous in the manner that I don’t need someone else to amuse me–I do a damn good job of it myself.  I love the fact that I have a firm set of convictions, but that I am also willing to listen to arguments that might make me change my mind.  I love that I am confident enough in my mental ability that I actively seek out people who are as smart if not smarter than I so that I can continue to learn new things.  I am proud of the fact that I have a group of highly-intelligent, compassionate, creative, wicked funny friends and that being friends with them makes me a better me.

I love the fact that I have finally claimed my life as my own.  I no longer feel the need to hide behind protective coloring–as if I ever really could.  This is me, damn it!  Anyone who doesn’t like it can kiss my flat ass!  Kel, you will never hear me say I have a big ass, don’t you worry about that.  Even on my darkest days, I can feel that voice inside me who won’t shut the fuck up, and she’s saying, “Suck it, bitchez!  The real Minna Hong is here to stay.  Deal!”

I love the fact that my blogging has led me to meet so many motherfucking awesome people who greatly enrich my life.  Ok, that last one is more about you guys than about me, but if I hadn’t started pimping my blog, I never would have met y’all.

I love the fact that despite myself, I am still fucking alive.  That is amazing.

Ok.  Second part of the challenge, ladies.  For this week, try to think something nice about every woman you meet.  I know that I tend to notice the negative about people, especially women, so this will be a difficult one for me.  Why am I focusing on women?  Because I think women are much harsher on other women than we are on men.  I am curious to see how often I slip back into making catty remarks about other women–if only in my head.  I’ll report how I do next week.

That’s it for today, kids.  See ya on the flip side.