Listen, World 🌏 ⭐️🧚‍♀️

I find today’s prompt topic, compared to what I am experiencing, seems too pat that it gave an extra fillip. The challenges I have to tackle are lifelong, and I haven’t even half succeeded. I don’t know if you want to read this litany of woes, but if you do, I will appreciate your kind soul because writing this post will be my logotherapy for the broken heart and wounded soul.

I have zero tolerance for incivility and any offenses that others regard as insignificant because I take it as a disrespect of my existence. In the office, the majority of them speak Spanish even if they were born here in the States. I am the only Asian, and more particularly Korean, so they always treat me as if I were invisible. They may act politically correct or pretend not to exclude me, even if I try to be as friendly as possible and am always courteous, offering help they don’t appreciate. So I resign to aloneness and hopelessness in the crowds, withdrawing myself from their circle of sociability. How would you feel when everyone says hi to each other but you when they know you are there? Doesn’t My Life Also Matter?

My other challenge is to be too soft-hearted, growing no apples of wrath for those who hurt me with acrid remarks and unkind gestures. Although my furies will arise from slumber when provoked, if the instigators show moments of human weakness or even an instant ray of warmth or kindness, they will retreat with steps back until they return to Valhalla.

This morning’s episode was an excellent example of this topic. After a morning mass for the Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, there was a communal breakfast prepared by the church ladies. I stood in a line to bring food for my mom, who had taken seats in advance. Then, these old ladies dressed up nicely cut the line in front of me with the friendliest faces! My indignation burst out, so I asked them how they could be so sneaky when we all had just heard the mass with the Holy Communions. They apologized to me but didn’t bother to go back on the line. I was inwardly crying over the fact that these people disrespected me, and I fell to the pit of sorrow ever again.

People say to love thyself to be loved, but that’s impossible because humans are, by nature, political animals, as Aristotle said. We don’t live alone and shape our perceptions of ourselves mostly from what others see us. It’s called a “Looking-Glassed Self,” a theory of sociology coined by Robert Cooley. Thus, I feel I was born in the wrong place under the wrong circumstances. Many claim they are ugly ducklings, swans among ducks, but I believe I am the one. Hercules’s Twelve Labors seems pale in comparison with my most demanding challenges in life.