A Perspective Change

Hey everyone!

If this is your first time visiting my blog, a very warm welcome to you.

If not, did you miss me? I hope you did cause I definitely missed interacting with you all in the blogosphere. It’s been well over a month, approaching two, since I last published a post on my blog. I could come up with several excuses as to why I didn’t but I’d rather not. Let’s just focus on the fact that I’m back!

I thought of publishing sooner but about what? I haven’t published in a month so there was a lot of pressure of wanting to make a comeback with an amazing and engaging post. I don’t know if this post will meet such requirements or not but that is hardly my focus right now.

I’ve learnt tons of lessons I thought of sharing with you, both good and bad but the lesson I learnt today precedes all others and it is the lesson I learnt from Kim Namjoon.

This past week was a very eventful one as it began with the Grammys, BTS no doubt left an impression on any and every one who watched the event so of course, opinions were being raised about them on every side of social media. Regretfully but no surprisingly, tons of unreasonable and unwarranted hate was targeted towards the artists. So much so, ARMYs couldn’t sit and watch, not like we’ve ever been known to do so but it was indeed terrifying the amount of negativity being thrown at both BTS and their fans.

On the 8^th of April, after a successful first day concert, Namjoon also known as RM, took to VLive to communicate with ARMYs which is usually a custom of the group. Amidst the inside jokes and light talks about the future, RM acknowledged that he and the rest of the members are not oblivious to the hate they receive online and they do know the lengths ARMYs go through to defend them but this in fact worries him because of the mental toll it might have on us, having to always defend them every time hate is targeted at them which happens more often than you can imagine.

He said,

“There were always people who didn’t like us. It could be our fault but there are many times when it isn’t our fault too. What team is there that is liked by everyone? The fact that there are people in America who don’t like us, that means we’ve gone up and become mainstream so that’s good, right? Because ARMYs are going through a difficult time, having to react to this negative energy”.

I spent a great deal of time pondering on the last line because indeed it was true. I have never been one to scroll past a hate comment directed towards the group because a reasonable amount of the hate is always unwarranted, an obtuse way of soothing their (the haters) fragile egos as witnessed during last week’s ordeal. However, there is a limit to the amount of negativity one can surround themselves with before it begins to take effect.

RM goes on to say, “I think you don’t need to care about this because that’s what the people that don’t like us want, they want the attention. I ask that you guys don’t care about this stuff because it is a waste for you to use your energy on these things. Those people like it when you add comments to their posts, so not adding comments will be good for our mental health too”.

(Credit to @haruharu_w_bts for translations)

I spent the entire day reflecting back on his words. He was right and this not only applies in the online community but in our lives as well. Our perspective on situations matters a lot, we can choose the things we want to affect us. Whether we want ponder on that one thing that went wrong today or shift focus to that little gesture that made us smile. We spend the majority of our time thinking about the negative things we give so much importance too in our lives rather than focusing on the good things we have going on, the people far and near that love and care for us. I’ve realized that these past weeks, I was unhappy because I chose to dwell too much on the events that frustrated me instead of magnifying those moments that made me laugh, conversations that made me smile and letting those overshadow the difficult times.

I have decided to make a conscious effort to do better in this regards, both online and in real life, for Joon and for myself.

I hope I’m able to truly express my thoughts in a way you understand and I really hope you enjoyed reading. Looking forward to reading your views and thoughts in the comments.

Side note: This marks my 200th post on It’s Ib blog! I can’t believe i’ve been this consistent with something, makes me very proud of myself.

Thank you for your support as always, love you!