Suffer...Truth...Together

The events surrounding KPop superstar T.O.P this week (and beyond) highlight some important facts: we all have problems, we all need to live true to ourselves and we all need people around us who can help us do that.

We All Suffer

I have type 1 diabetes (T1D) and have struggled with depression and anxiety on and off my whole life. I know people with a laundry list of physical, emotional, financial and/or psychological hardships. It doesn’t matter how much or how little money you have. Money cannot buy you out of life’s bitter darknesses.

T.O.P is said to be dealing with some mental health issues. Mental struggles are just as painful as physical ones. Some have argued that they are tougher because they are invisible, therefore sympathy is not easily earned. Having an invisible condition myself (T1D) I can see this as possible. We sometimes want to pretend these things don’t exist. Sometimes we try to hide our weaknesses.

We All Deserve Truth

I’ve become more outspoken about my life, including my T1D, in recent years. Writing this blog is testament to my willingness to share my life’s truths. It’s frightening to me but I feel compelled to live (and share) my real life for both myself and others who may find themselves in similar situations.

We all live within a social structure and sometimes we feel obligated to mold ourselves to that framework’s customs. I believe people like T.O.P feel this pressure deeply. Whether it’s our personal, medical, professional, religious, political or sexual truths, if ours are in serious conflict with the framework we find ourselves in, it will lead to our destruction.

A little flexibility could go a long way towards easing each other's experiences.

We All Need Someone

With all my talk of pain and pressure, YES there is hope. It can be found in each other’s eyes and arms.

We all need a support system. We can all be a part of those support systems. We can express kind words and actions. We can allow others who differ from us to have their space. As long as they are not negatively impacting others, it’s their right. We can speak up and stand up with non-violent conviction when we see others being excluded and wronged.

We don’t need yes-people in our lives agreeing blindly to whatever we say and do. We need people living their lives fully and living their truths fully.  We need people willing to actively try, fail and get back up again to try again. T.O.P needs that just as much as you or I.

Life’s about learning from our experiences. We can do that best when we do it together.

Fear and Loathing in 2016

2016 could be characterized in part by 2 very unsettling phrases I’ve heard over the year: “trust the process” and “post-truth”. In my mind, the root of both of these turns of words, and the reason they are so dangerous is this: fear.

In and of itself “trust the process” can be construed as something quite positive. Our democracy is a system that has run for hundreds of years- we should trust it. We work within corporations and other organizations with rules and codes of conduct- we should rely on them. However, when we actually feel the need to say the phrase “trust the process”, we should take a really hard look and consider. What is triggering it? Why is there enough doubt to inspire the speaking of it? What is going on to erode the innate sense of security we feel when we know (even though it’s not perfect) that we’re in a good place mentally, emotionally and physically?

Oxford Dictionaries has picked the word “post-truth” as the international word of the year for 2016. It’s an adjective to describe public opinion where the public’s beliefs are not based on facts but are based on ideas beyond or outside of actual facts. What can be legitimately demonstrated and proven is no longer important in a post-truth world.

If we can’t or don’t base our ideas and principles on facts, how can we trust the process?

The answer is simple: we can’t. We’d be living in fear and fear can eat us alive. Fear can tear us apart. Fear can keep us from doing anything at all or drive us to the unthinkable.

As we prepare for a new year, it behooves us all to think about what really matters to us and LIVE it. Let’s go BEYOND post-truth and base our actions on truth and love. To every person we meet and with every word we speak, we should act with earnest intention and not in fear, but in truth and love. Truth and love for self. Truth and love for other. Truth and love for us all.