'Stop hiding, man!'
I'm pretty sure this person wouldn't even remember ever saying those words to me, but to this day, the message still rings true. When I first started this blog, I tried to introduce it to my friends on social media, including Facebook. This person left a comment on my Facebook post saying that they actually enjoyed reading my blog and that I should stop hiding.
I felt so happy. Back then, I was so grateful knowing that somebody, whom I happened to have so much respect for, actually encouraged me to keep writing. They told me I'd get there. That I'd improve eventually.
Years later, I once again stumbled upon these words—and they hit me harder than they should.
After being dormant for so long, for the first time in years, I decided to log back into my account. I was just casually scrolling down my own profile—because frankly, I had no idea what Facebook even looked like today—when my eyes met this same old post, same old comment. I read it over and over, and it was almost like I just discovered old-age wisdom buried in my front yard.
There's something about these words that flipped my switch. All of a sudden, I felt like crying and I wasn't even sure why I should be. There's just a sudden rush of guilt, regret, and probably shame washing over me, mentally and even physically. I could feel the incoming train of thoughts, the incoming what if and why, why, why.
Sure enough, I started questioning myself (as if I hadn't been doing it already) and I just had to take that mandatory trip down the memory lane all over again. The exact same trip I take whenever my old pal anxiety kicks in. I wonder where I would be right now if I had taken those chances. I wonder who I would be surrounded with if I had kept them close. I wonder what would've happened if I didn't shut my own mouth. I wonder why I was hiding. Where had I been? What was I even hiding from?
Then I realized that maybe, maybe, I was playing the wrong game of hide-and-seek.
The rule is simple: hide where no one can find you, or seek until you find everyone. We gather, then we disperse. We keep looking or we slowly find a way out, to the designated place where we meet at the start. The problem is, while everyone else did the seeking, I was the only one did the hiding.
In real life, you should be the one who seeks out. It's a life-long quest to seek out who you are, but the choice is yours to make and the path is open for you to take. Along the way, you'll learn a lot about yourself while you're learning about what's around you. Then, someday, you'll get there. You find yourself. The game is over.
But if you're anything like me, you know that the game is not that simple. Seeking yourself is an exhausting job. Some people probably never even made it; some people probably left this world not knowing who they were or why exactly they were even here and not somewhere else across the universe. Some people are blessed with a solid certainty about their purpose on Earth, but something could happen along the way and all of a sudden, they're not even sure anymore.
25 years and I still have no idea.
I had done my part, seeking my true self and intention. I had an endless list of questions but hardly got any reply. One day, I was just so exhausted that I wasn't paying attention to where I was going. And then, I fell into the abyss. I tried so hard to get back up, but the distance between my rock-bottom mental state and the sky-high demand of the world was just too overwhelming that I decided to embrace staying in the dark.
(Sometimes, I think I actually enjoy being depressed.)
That's what happened. That's where the game went wrong. I was supposed to play the game of hide-and-seek. What I was playing was hide-and-hide-more. I had so little faith in myself that I couldn't even see myself playing the seeking game anymore. Seeking involves risky moves, and I decided to play safe. I might have reached the point where I'm just waiting to be found.
That's why that exact comment on my old Facebook post hit me that hard.
On one hand, I want the world to know what I'm thinking. On the other hand, I'm too afraid to let the world know what I'm thinking because then they would be able to read me like an open book. Maybe I wasn't built for the seeking game, because in this game, you need to have some faith in yourself. So, while I retreated to the hiding game, everybody else was already starting to figure out who they were and how they would like to function.
Perhaps, the person who left that comment never intended their words to be taken this far. Perhaps, the person who left that comment was simply glad to see me trying. Perhaps, the person who left that comment offered their words only as a kind gesture to a friend.
Maybe I still am playing the wrong game, but it doesn't mean that I'm not hoping things to change. From that day on, those words have become my personal mantra. I think I need a constant reminder to live my life to the fullest, even though I still have no idea what a 'full' life would be for me, personally.
Finally, years later, I try to stop hiding.
Stop hiding, man!
