Looking in the mirror to see the real me
How were you in 2024? Were you happy? or Did you just have a normal year? Let me talk about how I changed in 2024. There were a few big moments that impacted me a lot in a good way this year.
First, there was a situation where my mom broke her arm, especially her elbow. When this happened in early 2024, this was the moment that I realized how weak I was and was pretty much like a snowflake in terms of mentality. I got really disappointed in myself. This moment broke my ego because I considered myself very strong-minded and good at solving problems without being emotional. Just at the moment when I saw my mom lying on the hospital bed with a broken arm and heard that she could not use her arm, I felt like my world was ending and helpless. Yes, the word helpless was the best word to describe me at that time. I knew that I had to come to my senses and try to find ways for my mom, but I just felt helpless and got traumatized. It was my very first time seeing my mom crying and not being confident as always like when she was taking care of me and my sister. This feeling still remains inside of me. Still, I am trying to recover the intimidating feeling. However, at the same time, through this incident, I became more potent than before. Looking at my mom and trying to help my mom in that chaos, I made a self-inner growth. Now, looking back at this incident, I feel like this definitely traumatized me but also helped me to grow at the same time. I certainly learned that I was not a person who is ready to handle or deal with significant emergencies, and now I’m trying to be a person who can be calm as much as I can and cope with these situations better than I used to be. This helped me to be a more mature person. It changed my personality that I acted like an immature kid in an emergency situation. So, now I appreciate for the lessons I got from this situation.
Second, this year, 2024, I went on a trip with my friend without my parents for the first time. It was the first time I stayed out overnight without my parents. I always felt frustrated about that my parents were always overprotecting me. Ever since I was younger, they always would not let me hang out with my friends and always called me every time I was outside playing till even just a little late time. For that reason, I always depended on my parents and could not do my things and duties by myself. I never felt comfortable with my parents handling all my duties. Instead, I felt like myself to be an independent person or an idiot who is always like a child who is always taken care of by their parents and is very indecisive. So, I always wanted to make myself to be more independent. My self-esteem kept decreasing whenever my parents did my duties instead of me because I felt like I was a person who wasn’t able to do my things and a person who was inferior to my friends, who did their stuff on their own.
Also, I was very insecure because my parents did everything instead of me, I was always behind my parents and didn’t have the chance to talk or do something in front of people or with my friends often. That’s why I didn’t have many friends. To fix that, this year, I firmly insisted that I wanted to go on a trip with my friends and stay overnight outside for the first time. Even though I was over 19, I still felt terrified to be up in arms to my parents, but I had to. I really had to break my barrier to be a real ‘adult’ who can do my things independently and be confident enough to talk to people about what I have to say. When I went on the trip, I finally felt free and thrilled. It was very tough for me to find hotels or places to go by myself, but my confidence definitely increased and finally I was happy.
Enjoying the trip, I felt like, finally, I am the kind of person who could be just like other friends and do things on my own. So now my self-esteem and confidence really increased. Now, I feel like I can do stuff by myself, and I am the type of person who can do anything. This experience really broke my barrier and blew it off. Doing things like finding places or finding ways looking at the map on my own, it was definitely hard but also at the same time, definitely made me an independent person who has more confidence on myself.
Third, I lost 10kg weight. As I mentioned before, I had very low self-esteem. Another reason for my low self-esteem was my appearance. With lower confidence, as I tried to hide from people, I started to compare myself to my friends. As my self-esteem got lower, I thought my appearance was terrible. To overcome that, I decided to lose my weight. At first, I thought, okay, I would lose weight to look better, but even though I lose my weight, would it really help me recover my ego? At first, even though I lost weight, I didn’t realize that I looked suitable and fit, but when people around me started to tell me that I looked fitter and better than before, that was the point where I had more confidence than before.
As I recovered my confidence and ego, I started wearing pretty outfits like my friends and go outside with pretty clothes and taking pictures. I started to interact with people not hiding myself alone, I became happier and got more energy through my increased self-esteem. I finally learned the power of being with people and thinking positively about myself.
So, obviously I did not always go through good experiences. There were definitely the moments that impacted me in bad ways. However, I want to focus on positive experiences than negative ones because now I learned the power of the positive thinking. That’s why I want to say that this year was the chance of the self growth. Now, there are more ways to go to improve myself. I will try more to make myself a better person.
By: Sehee Ju
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