Day 4: Someone who inspires me

Months ago, I was attacked by severe mental breakdown. I came up with burnout, I felt like I don’t want to do anything, I woke up with burden every day, I thought that everything that I did at that time was not worth my energy and impacted to my well-being. I kept questioning, “why am I here? Why am I doing this? Why should I be the one who experience these kind of shits?” and so on. I tried to do anything that I like, my hobby, learned many things, but it didn’t help at all. Sometimes I laid down in my bed, look at my room’s ceiling, with a blank stare while my brain was filled by negative thoughts. Sometimes I cried, I felt like I couldn’t bear it anymore. Sometimes I listened to my metal songs playlist, my comfort music every time I got frustrated. But the fact that I was still able to cry, made me feel grateful somehow because I kept believing that it’s just sad, not depression. But of course, it was dark…

…until this group of 7 boys (or men, because they’ve grown up) came into my life, performed Dynamite beautifully, and made me experiencing such an instant fall-in-love.

Let’s not consider this writing as a fangirling topic — I have written it on my Day 1 post anyway — but instead, let’s just talk about how my idol inspired me and actually, saved my mental health. To be more precise, I’d like to talk about one specific person of this group: BTS’ Kim Seok-jin.

Every time someone know that other people being a fan of one group, usually they would ask: “what’s your favorite member?” When I was asked about this, then I answered that Jin is my bias, most likely they would say, “but he’s the weakest member…” and they would probably think that I only prefer him by his visual. To be honest, at first I was questioning also why did I choose Jin as my bias? Unlike his team members, he didn’t have singing or dancing background (even we can see how struggling he was at the begining—he didn’t plan to be an idol like the others), and if you’re talking about visuals, it’s true that he belongs to the visual line but for me the others also have good visuals anyway. But the more I think about it, the more I know the answer:

because I resonated the most with him.

Sometimes when people asked why I like Jin, I would say that “he’s underdog, and I like it”. Because being an underdog makes me feel having so much similarity with him, and for me, he’s the most realistic version of an idol (even though it still feels surreal, by any means, he is still an idol and has capabilities of it). Knowing that he usually works multiple times harder than others to get into the same pace, and keeps trying even though dancing and singing are probably not his ultimate passion, makes me feel like I’m seeing a reflection of myself. Every BTS’ fans know Jin ranked the least in dance, but after years of practice, he finally could get better and better in his current performance. He even did dance in his recent solo song, which he rarely did in his previous solo!

After all, by seeing Jin, I feel like I could do anything as long as I put my mind on it. His dance is clearly not as good as J-Hope or Jimin, amongst the vocal line I think Jung Kook or Taehyung has stronger singing technique than him, and he also doesn’t produce music and lyrics as many as RM or Suga. But one thing I can see is, he’s special in his own way. To my ears, he’s the best singer for ballad songs in BTS (tbh, one of my favorite K-pop songs since 2017 is BTS’ Awake, and this year I just found out it was actually Jin’s solo — shame on my ears for not able differentiate which one is solo and which one is group song). As the eldest brother, he got his charm as one of the most caring members. On his personality, he could be very mature and act up as his age at one time, and become a manchild at the other time. He is surely a happy pill, who always knows to live happily and inspires others to be happy too. He loves to make others laugh and lighten up the mood, even though it’s obvious that he’s kind of introvert and he also described that his natural trait are shy and reserved. And referring to what other members said, he contributes a lot to the group’s emotional stability. That’s how I like him. It’s beyond his visual, indeed. He also shows an example of how we should believe in ourselves, even though we took different path with what we have planned; and if we’ve been there, we’d just need to try harder and harder. We don’t need to be very excellent in certain areas that we don’t master of, but as long as we try, we’d still be able to find our pace and create harmony with others. And oh, don’t forget: he reminds us that feeling insecure is normal, experiencing impostor syndrome is human, and getting stressed during work is natural. Even an idol like him admitted that he feels that way. But he never quits.

Honestly, when I listened to Awake for the first time after I knew it was sung by Jin alone, it really hit differently and I cried. First, I realized the meaning of this song is very deep, and somehow I could feel Jin just sang his heart out through this song. Two, I was on my lowest point at that time and could relate very well with the lyrics:

Maybe I, I can never fly
I can’t fly like the flower petals over there
Or as though I have wings
Maybe I, I can’t touch the sky
Still, I want to stretch my hand out
I want to run, just a bit more…

From Jin, I learned that we all had flaws and sometimes feel less than others, but it’s better to focus on what we can control—our own self development, for instance. Just like Jin, who keeps running despite all of his shortcomings, yet reminds us to keep running in our own pace. What’s the point of comparing ourselves to others, if in fact some things are just not comparable?

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“Sometimes I’d feel restless, watching my friends go on far ahead of me. And attempting to keep up with their speed would only leave me breathless. I soon realized that their pace was not my own. What held me together during those time was a promise I made with myself: to take it slow.

I’d go at my own pace, steadily.

From then on, it became a habit of mine to take extra time for myself. If any of you feels lost in the face of doubt or uncertainty, or the pressure of starting anew, don’t rush. Take a deep breath. You may find that any moment can be turned on into an opportunity. Allow yourself to take it easy. Take it one step at a time. You might discover the important things you were missing, and they will reach out to you.”

— Kim Seok-jin at BTS Commencement Speech: Dear Class Of 2020

Thank you, Kim Seok-jin, for being not only an idol, but also a person who always inspires and reminds us to try harder and harder; to never let our emotions and pressure from surroundings lead us to the decision of quitting.

Thank you, for being the most realistic form of an idol we could ever see.