Written by Alisha Chen
Have you ever found someone who knows you so well that you want to cry? This is the type of tears of “finally, someone understands me!” type of happy, amazed tears and a good cry. Yesterday, while in my hair salon appointment, I came across this video. The title of this video caught my curiosity. I don’t have much interest in Greek Philosophies nor do I have much knowledge of them, but from my life’s encounter so far, I can relate to the word “rarest”. I felt so misunderstood even by my closest relatives who love me and I love them. It has constantly been a struggle to explain myself to others. But how do you explain why I do what I do without telling them hours and days of the experiences I have encountered my entire life each time so they understand why I say what I say and do what I do?
By the way, it is fun for me to strike out of the norms of being “grammatically correct” sometimes. I appreciate more of getting to know personalities and characters over being “politically correct” most of the time. I can have fun while talking about a very serious subject. That is why I am usually a rebel. Can’t help it, sometimes. OK, I will try to behave now.
From my own life experiences, brief encounters sometimes lead to more misunderstandings than no encounters. With the pressure of limited time, I find myself needing to condense some information which may lead to people having a certain perception or stereotyping that confines the expressed portion of the content given. Those who truly have an interest in getting to know you will ask questions they would like clarification. Most others just interpret their ways. But there is no other way to prevent misunderstandings unless you give a long answer. However, in the world we live in today, who has time for long answers? Therefore, we force everyone else to misunderstand everyone else with this microwave culture; fast and to the point but very unhealthy and harmful. Therefore, the more I know, the more I need to know to prevent misunderstandings.
How we perceive things is often embedded into our minds about that person. If quality time is not spent to further understand each other, unknown wrong perceptions may start to root in us until that root is so deep that it takes a lot of “un-doing” first before further relationship can grow.
Whether in personal life or business interactions, healthy relationships are important to have a successful and pleasant transaction to achieve goals.
I find reading books and getting degrees set by the education system is far from reality nor useful. The University of “Doing Life” has taught me more useful information and experiences that thousands of books are unable to fully express. On the contrary, I find many education systems place me into a box that forces me to rid of who I am, and how I am wired to “conform” to the norm.
Oh, the internal struggles of knowing that are slowly killing who I am, what I believe, and the direction of how I want to grow. The world defines our success by how many financial and tangible assets we have…” the end result”. However, our world now places little value or no value at all on the process itself, which I believe is the most important aspect of a person’s development. No, I was not born like this as the above video described. Who I am today was developed through lots of walking step-by-step through life and overcoming every challenge and many painful ones.
Our society defines how successful of a person we are by the number of friends we have on Facebook, social media, and how many people say hi to us everywhere we go. I define friends as those who have invested in me to develop a deep, rooted relationship that is so precious that makes life worth living. I define those who only know my name, my face, my physical attributes, and surface information about me are just acquaintances. I have a few thousand acquaintances but no friends except for this video who knows me so well. Would that be shameful to say? To me, not shameful, just honest. How many friends (by my definition) do you have? If you have just one friend by my definition, you are wealthy! Most people I’ve had this type of talk will admit they have no friends by my definition. Yet, all of them desire to have these deep-rooted friendships. So why is this?
Any deep-rooted relationships to any level require the investment of time, patience, open-mindedness, and willingness. Each minute you choose to spend on something, you sacrifice something else for it. Your priorities and actions dictate what is valuable to you. How many of us say relationships are the most valuable commodity in the world, but yet our choice of actions says otherwise? Why? Because it is easier to do something you know how or have more control over. It requires honesty, and vulnerability to develop deep relationships. In the world today, the silent culture indirectly tells us that there is too much risk. Also, who likes to be judged or rejected?
While everyone I know would like to be understood, when it comes down to decision-making, most still choose NOT to invest in that. The discomfort is that extensive to most people. To me, I am not afraid to die tomorrow, but I am afraid to live a life of losing who I am. I rather die trying and knowing that I did the best I could than regret the death bed. With a nursing background, I’ve talked to countless people who have regretted placing the “world’s” definition of priorities in life and it is now too late for them to do anything about it. People like Steve Jobs also admitted this during the last portion of his life before his death. I rather live a short life and know I lived it to the fullest than live a long life of lost purpose. That’s just my perspective on life. I am not suggesting everyone else should have this outlook in life. This is just my honest outlook on life. In other words, I prefer a life of bravery instead of fear or just being alive. To me, that is the true definition of freedom.
What about you? What is something that is heart-to-heart that has been on your mind? Feel free to reach out to me. The only requirements are honesty and open-mindedness (non-judgmental).
Especially if you are a Sigma man or woman (described by these videos), let’s connect and support one another since we have been very misunderstood by most. We can encourage one another and continue to be who we are safely and respectfully.
On a bigger scale, we can come together to build beautiful and sustainable lifestyles to change things for the better.
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