The Rebel Within

You know what I find impressive? Those who have gone through so many flames and still stand ready with buckets of water to put out the fires of others.

You know what I find impressive? Those who have walked through so many fires and still manage to transform into heroes. It's funny that as children, we desperately wanted to be the hero and thought so poorly of the villain, but as adults, we began to understand the so-called villains, realizing they have their own stories and struggles.

What does the world need? I was first asked this question when I attended my very first event. It was an event for leaders in the public sector. What I believe the world needs: a different perspective on villains.

I am just a woman trying to survive in a world led by expectations, pressures, and unspoken rules, where finding my own path often feels like an act of rebellion. Perhaps to some, I am a terrible person. Perhaps I am the villain. You can either be the hero or the enemy in someone else’s story. Just stay true to yourself, because it’s never good enough. In my circle, I play the role of the rebel. As I said: "It’s never good enough." So, I stuck to that. Why am I a rebel?

I believe that every villain has a deep wound. Now, I’m not the villain who stabs everyone, but I am the villain who is a villain because I refuse to follow in someone else’s footsteps. Because I don’t want to live the way Chairwoman Headquarters wants me to. By the way, Chairwoman Headquarters is a name I created for a specific group of people. A group who think I was born a robot and believe they can make me live my life the way they want.

I tried to be who they wanted me to be. I tried because I was foolish and naïve. But now, to live the way I want to, I’m the villain. The villain who does what she wants because she has a heart of stone. Yes, my heart is stone because some tried to stab it over and over again. Yes, I don’t listen anymore, because I recently set boundaries, and if you cross them, I get angry. But you know what? I’m proud of myself for getting angry and doing a job no one ever could for me.

I’m pretty proud of receiving the "stone-hearted" label. It means I’m there for myself and that I care about myself. Your angry version is your self-respect and self-confidence, which I lacked for many years.

But where does anger come from? Anger is a secondary emotion. There’s a primary emotion that comes before it. I spent enough time with it to discover that its real name is Sadness.

And it was and still is very painful. Very painful to sit with your thoughts. You should try it sometime. Sometimes the most unpleasant place to be is in your mind. Your thoughts sometimes want to destroy you. What do you do when something bothers you or you’re afraid of something? Yes, you do exactly what you’re afraid of. You confront exactly what’s bothering you.

The truth is, the villain was once innocent. There was once a source of enthusiasm in him/her. There was once a clear soul. But in a toxic world, that soul was burdened with poison. In a world where too many toxic personalities exist, the non-toxic souls have to go to therapy to survive. And from an innocent soul, in that way, what they call "a monster" was born.