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| YOU'VE GOT TO GET UP AND TRY! |
I had been
sitting here, starring at my computer monitor for about an hour and wondering what
point to begin from. Well, an apology wouldn’t be a bad start I guess. Accept
my profound apologies for last week, I was on transit. Seems like 2013 is on
rocket speed! I thought 2012 was fast but right now, I am thinking not so fast.
About three weeks ago, I was cajoled or better still, certain coercive measures
were imposed on me by my very mushy sisters to watch a Korean love story. I hate
love stories but a Korean movie is definitely a NO movie for me, so imagine the
horror and disgust that was coursing through me when I sat sandwiched between my
sisters to satisfy their misplaced generosity. They eminently thought they were
doing me two mammoth favors- softening me up and helping me relax. Well, I did
oblige them and we began the movie, a series of about twenty three episodes but
something happened.
My initial disgust and horror began to fade as I changed my sitting position from uptight to something more relaxed. I thought the movie was hilarious, and the female lead was an incredible lunatic! But what I didn’t realize at the moment was this- the crazy Korean movie was about to become my source of inspiration, encouragement and strength in a potential adversity.
With hopes as high as the Himalayas and sparkling ebullience, flowing like the long Mississippi, I embarked on a journey to the “Heartbeat” of the nation in a bid to experience the birth of a dream that had being conceived and nurtured for precisely seven months, enough time for a fetus to fully develop and be able to survive on its own. Unfortunately, I met with a still birth instead and at that moment of immense despair and frustration with tears gliding down my eyes from beneath my sunshade as I watched the heart wrenching plummet of my Himalayas of hope with a flinty expression, a temporal amnesia took hold of my cerebrum but only one word depicted all constancy. It wouldn’t fade into the stream of agony and regret. All that resonated through my nerves and veins was “FIGHTING”.
I was lost, it didn’t make any sense. Desperately, I tried to calm down and understand why I was hearing only that word. At first my thoughts seemed incoherent but a few minutes later, a nerve sparked somewhere in the intricate wiring of my nervous system, a quick lightening provoked a thunder that sucked me into a hundred and sixty eight hours before the present and it all became crystal. I jolted out of the waves and for the first time after I beheld the stillbirth, a weak smile played across my lips. “FIGHTING” was the family slogan of the female lead I earlier described as an “incredible lunatic” in the Korean movie I coaxingly watched but you wouldn’t comprehend how the word became my solace and haven until you meet GEUM JAN DI who equally was bestowed with the epithet “Wonder Woman” by the cream De la cream of the Shinwa High.
Born to a very humble and struggling Korean family, Jan Di worked at least five odd jobs to support her family whose only source of livelihood was a dingy dry cleaning outlet which also served as an housing facility for the family of four but poverty never broke their spirits. Jan Di was smart, vocal and had zero tolerance for injustice, oppression and intimidation. As a kindergarten kid, she dealt with bullies regardless of the differential in size which always was prejudiced against her.
The cleaners lived in inexplicable joy and peace in their little world until an incident that would in the future take them through innumerable hardships and hazards occurred. With her fighting spirit,
Jan Di rescued a junior of the elite high school Shinwa High from suicide and her fortune changed- she became big news and was offered a scholarship to a high school exclusive for the high and mighty and so her travails began. She was caught in a world disparate from hers.
A young master and heir to the ruling Korean conglomerate spotted her and so her woes multiplied. His mother made life literally unbearable for Jan Di- her family lost the cleaning outlet, their only source of income and was compelled to street hawking. Bills could not be paid and so her parents left for outskirts where they lived on a fishing boat to earn a meager means of living. Not only did the matriarch afflict GEUM JAN DI, she extended her loathe to anyone who was connected to her in any way. She got her best friend’s dad fired, forcefully took over the foundation of another of her sympathizers. The matriarch made earth Hades for Jan Di but in the midst of the storms, the cleaners held onto their family slogan-“FIGHTING” and together they overcame!
It is recorded in the holy writ that if a man’s strength fails him in the days of adversity, then his strength is little, meager or small. I have also come to the conclusion trailing the path of the holy writ’s assertion that your strength can be regarded as failed or failing and quantified as meager only when you stop “FIGHTING”.
My initial disgust and horror began to fade as I changed my sitting position from uptight to something more relaxed. I thought the movie was hilarious, and the female lead was an incredible lunatic! But what I didn’t realize at the moment was this- the crazy Korean movie was about to become my source of inspiration, encouragement and strength in a potential adversity.
With hopes as high as the Himalayas and sparkling ebullience, flowing like the long Mississippi, I embarked on a journey to the “Heartbeat” of the nation in a bid to experience the birth of a dream that had being conceived and nurtured for precisely seven months, enough time for a fetus to fully develop and be able to survive on its own. Unfortunately, I met with a still birth instead and at that moment of immense despair and frustration with tears gliding down my eyes from beneath my sunshade as I watched the heart wrenching plummet of my Himalayas of hope with a flinty expression, a temporal amnesia took hold of my cerebrum but only one word depicted all constancy. It wouldn’t fade into the stream of agony and regret. All that resonated through my nerves and veins was “FIGHTING”.
I was lost, it didn’t make any sense. Desperately, I tried to calm down and understand why I was hearing only that word. At first my thoughts seemed incoherent but a few minutes later, a nerve sparked somewhere in the intricate wiring of my nervous system, a quick lightening provoked a thunder that sucked me into a hundred and sixty eight hours before the present and it all became crystal. I jolted out of the waves and for the first time after I beheld the stillbirth, a weak smile played across my lips. “FIGHTING” was the family slogan of the female lead I earlier described as an “incredible lunatic” in the Korean movie I coaxingly watched but you wouldn’t comprehend how the word became my solace and haven until you meet GEUM JAN DI who equally was bestowed with the epithet “Wonder Woman” by the cream De la cream of the Shinwa High.
Born to a very humble and struggling Korean family, Jan Di worked at least five odd jobs to support her family whose only source of livelihood was a dingy dry cleaning outlet which also served as an housing facility for the family of four but poverty never broke their spirits. Jan Di was smart, vocal and had zero tolerance for injustice, oppression and intimidation. As a kindergarten kid, she dealt with bullies regardless of the differential in size which always was prejudiced against her.
The cleaners lived in inexplicable joy and peace in their little world until an incident that would in the future take them through innumerable hardships and hazards occurred. With her fighting spirit,
Jan Di rescued a junior of the elite high school Shinwa High from suicide and her fortune changed- she became big news and was offered a scholarship to a high school exclusive for the high and mighty and so her travails began. She was caught in a world disparate from hers.
A young master and heir to the ruling Korean conglomerate spotted her and so her woes multiplied. His mother made life literally unbearable for Jan Di- her family lost the cleaning outlet, their only source of income and was compelled to street hawking. Bills could not be paid and so her parents left for outskirts where they lived on a fishing boat to earn a meager means of living. Not only did the matriarch afflict GEUM JAN DI, she extended her loathe to anyone who was connected to her in any way. She got her best friend’s dad fired, forcefully took over the foundation of another of her sympathizers. The matriarch made earth Hades for Jan Di but in the midst of the storms, the cleaners held onto their family slogan-“FIGHTING” and together they overcame!
It is recorded in the holy writ that if a man’s strength fails him in the days of adversity, then his strength is little, meager or small. I have also come to the conclusion trailing the path of the holy writ’s assertion that your strength can be regarded as failed or failing and quantified as meager only when you stop “FIGHTING”.
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| DON'T GIVE UP! |
It is certainly a brand new year and for you as well as myself, it is the start of something new. A commencement of lush dreams, enthralling innovations and a bright burning torch of hope to see them manifest leads us through the meandering tunnel of wishes. Optimist that I am, I go into every second with severe ebullience and I never most of the times consider the “what ifs”. This I guess, has being my strongest point and ironically, sometimes, my fatal flaw because there are times I get so interred in the positivity that I lose the ability to manage a negative outcome with aplomb.
I begin to crumble on my inside in the face of a negative manifestation, an abortion of my dream or at the sight of a still birth just like I did recently until I remembered “FIGHTING”.
So, I have resolved to fight through 2013 regardless of its jet speed. In fact, I already have begun “FIGHTING” and I profoundly hope that you will do the same.
It hurts when dreams die and when hopes and aspirations fade into oblivion, we feel like we have reached the end of the road but the truth is- it is only actually over when you stop “FIGHTING”
Yes, dreams may die, ideas may be lost but hope can never be eliminated as long as there is life and strength to fight.
After all, John C. Maxwell in one of his book “be a people person” said, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant” I concur with him but this can only happen when you fight to keep your head clear enough to think!
To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle any human being can fight and never stop “FIGHTING” that was E.E. CUMMINGS.
As we advance in life, it becomes more and more difficult but in “FIGHTING” the difficulties, the innermost strength of the heart is developed. So “if you can’t go back to your mother’s womb, you’d better be a good fighter” thinks ANCHEE MIN!
I would like to leave you with the very poignant words of William Shakespeare. He spoke of adversity thus “Sweet are the uses of adversity, which, like a toad, though ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.”
NEVER STOP. NEVER STOP FIGHTING. NEVER STOP DREAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!
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