When you put away part of your inhibitions and open yourself to others a little more than you are now, you’ll come to discover that many problems you are facing are not isolated – you are not as alone as you thought you were.

Of course, this isn’t a new idea you can sell but definitely something you can put into practice.

Sharing secrets
There are things that will always remain a secret and from first hand experience, keeping them is a mental torture. Everyone of us who have lived decently long enough will have a history and the likelihood is that all of us have a skeleton in our own closet. In our society where social acceptance is paramount, we present our best when meeting new people. We tend to let go of our inhibitions to these people after some time, or when we are reassured that they are the ones who can take us whole.

These secrets which we kept so dearly became what the social mass considered stigmas. Your secrets became stigmas when they (either practices, beliefs, behaviours, etc) deviates from the social norms.

I’m not advocating that we should all start sharing our sensitivities and organize mass discussions on this. A smaller scale of this may perhaps been ideal? Furthermore, sharing with the right people will lead to the relationship moving onto a higher level; however, do exercise due caution.

Social acceptance a factor
If you ever spent time surfing around blogs and reading profiles off facebooks, it is typical to find sections of likes and dislikes. And often we discover dislikes to be almost identical across the board: people whom I knew abhor back stabbers, hypocrites or some category to that effect. I come to wonder if people ever categorize myself in that very hypocrites category.

While we can go on lament on how people appear very fake in front of us, we ought to understand what was mentioned before – social acceptance. No matter how real we wished we were, the bottom line is always acceptance to individuals, groups or cliques that matter greatly to us. We strived hard to shield the inadequacies from them, and doing the same to present ‘em the rosiest picture of our lives.

—

Just in case you thought I am in the beginning of some religious Christmas festive spiel, allow me to relate an example from my personal experience, continue reading in any case you are interested.

I remember expressing difficulties in studies to my friends. They, either assumed my difficulties were akin to the difficulty in obtaining sufficient As or the difficulty in adapting to the school system. Like many of them, I didn’t expect the journey to be that hard.

When I met the other officers on attachment and shared the same concerns, I thought many will be able to identify with me. I was wrong. Instead, I received caustic remarks. One in particular revealed a mouth agape with shock as though the next financial crisis had fallen upon him, and further questioned vaguely about what had I been doing in school. Another fella raved continually at his never-ending list of achievements, whether with the intention of belittling those around him was another story altogether. And finally, there was this pessimistic guy who enjoyed basking in the darkness of haplessness, as though I wasn’t sad enough already.

This was the point I nearly hated going back to camp for work because the thought of seeing ‘em sends me back into the caves of eternal condemnation, like I fell short of expectations cut to be an officer. It was also a moment when I bore second thoughts about this particular route I have taken. I wanted to give up and I was at the brink of falling into this cycle of self pity and denial which I believed will lead eventually to depression. At times, I was convinced that I didn’t want the university-life-stable-job route. The reason why I kept having contrastive thoughts was that fear of being inadequate in this demanding society.

There you see, it would have been easy for me to share what I find laborious during the course of university studies, but the elitist society don’t allow my sharing to be an ease. Failing to do well means you are lower class, period. Sometimes, all we needed was the extra motivation, encouragement and a pad on the back albeit I know it doesn’t always work.

The vacation has merely begun but the start of a new term is just weeks away. Those who were just a semester away from graduation will be back permanently with the formation at the end of next year.

I will miss the guys.

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 most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? 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 other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.

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 everyone. And as 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.

- Marianne Williamson.

A blessed and merry Christmas to all.