Loving Yourself

Part 1: “True love first begins with loving myself.”

From Abraham Lincoln’s post-battle “All Men Are Born Equal” speech at Gettysburg to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of pursuing happiness and skin-colorless freedom, the ideologies and beliefs of many have moved us to act and to believe. More recently, young activists like Greta Thunberg have expressed the need to save our environment and our world, but the words of one other about a topic notably lighter in weight but just as important as “our world” has truly touched my heart and struck my soul.

BTS are a seven-member worldwide K-Pop phenomenon. Even “groundbreaking” may not be a powerful enough word to describe their achievements in terms of shattering conventional images, broadening Asian representation and inspiring countless. Amongst many music sales-related attainments, in 2019 they became the third group in 50 years to have three number one albums on the Billboard 200 charts in less than a year, joining the ranks of The Beatles and The Monkees. They have around 136 million devoted fans called the Army from all ends of the world who help win hundreds of awards and break world records such as with their latest title track “Boy With Luv” which became the most viewed music video in the first 24 hours on YouTube with a staggering number of about 76 million views. This is huge for a boyband, but so much more coming from one that doesn't even sing in English.

With their name standing for “Bullet-Proof Boy Scouts” in Korean, BTS were formed in order to fight against the societal “bullets” of oppression and stereotypes in order to protect their values, an ensemble that screams “Hear what I have to say!” with their socially conscious and altruistic music. Their recent Love Yourself Trilogy consisting of three successive albums dedicated to spreading self-love that the members contributed to in terms of production, composition and writing as they always do has raised around $1.4 million, all donated in collaboration with UNICEF. People have had their doubts, but their speech about their campaign delivered by group leader Kim Namjoon at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, have proven to me that they are truly a group worth listening to.

Namjoon outlines his first point that no one else but us is capable of defining who we are. He looks back at all his past struggles and says, “At some point I stopped looking up at night sky; the stars. I stopped daydreaming. Instead, I tried to jam myself into the molds that other people made for me. Soon, I began to shut out my own voice and started to listen to the voices of others. No one called out my name, and neither did I”. He realized after that who he should listen to is himself, because his story matters, and what other people say do no matter nearly as much.

Today, a multitude of people are compelled to perform someone else’s play, to sing to someone else’s song, and to lead out someone else’s dreams. Numberless individuals I know have been shouldered from childhood with the burden of carrying out what their parents had failed to do, leaving them to fulfill the pressure of ambitions and desires that never belonged to them. Too often we do what is expected of us instead of what we truly can achieve, causing us to only walk when we never knew we could fly, to only imitate when we didn’t know how to innovate, to only exist when what we were born to do is live. Namjoon tells us to break out of the shell of other people's expectations and seek our own expectations.

He continues with his second point, saying how everyone’s meant to face obstacles. “Even after making the decision to join BTS, there were a lot of hurdles. Most people thought we were hopeless. Sometimes, I just wanted to quit. Now, we have become artists performing in huge stadiums and selling millions of albums, but I’m sure that I, and we, will keep stumbling”.

This connects to the following part where Namjoon says that everyone is who they are today because of everything that’s happened to them. “Maybe I made a mistake yesterday, but yesterday’s me is still me. I am who I am today, with all my faults and my mistakes. Tomorrow I might be a tiny bit wiser, and that would be me, too. These faults and mistakes are what I am, making up the brightest stars in the constellation of my life. I have come to love myself for who I was, who I am, and who I hope to become.”

Many are too harsh on themselves. A sliver of advice from someone else makes them question if they've ever done anything right, a sudden halt in the flow of ideas is enough to convince themselves to not make any more, and a single misstep is enough to knock down all their confidence. Then come a bout of hardships that leave them stuck and unable to progress. I myself, am not a full exclusion from this group of what people call "perfectionists", making this part of Namjoon's speech strike me so much more. He tells us that hardships are normal. Beating ourselves up because of the problems we face will not do anything. He tells us to acknowledge our mistakes and learn from them to continue on our journey of self-acceptance. This is so that one day after all of our difficulties have passed, we’ll be able look back and be glad that we never gave up, just as he did.

As Namjoon starts to close his speech, he states, "We have learned to love ourselves, so now I urge you to “speak yourself. I would like to ask all of you. What is your name? What excites you and makes your heart beat? Tell me your story. I want to hear your voice, and I want to hear your conviction. No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin color, gender identity: speak yourself. Find your name, and find your voice by speaking yourself."

Our society has transformed into a society where we search for validation from every place except for the only place wherein we should be searching for it; us. It is apparently not enough for the world to tell us to look for acceptance in person, it has to happen online as well through likes and follower counts. In addition to that, in places like work we often stay silent for fear of our voice being drowned out in the judgements and oppositions of others.

The fact is that if we believe in our own choices and abilities, if we know ourselves to the point of sizable self-appreciation and self-respect, and if we truly have love for ourselves, then will we realize that we do not need anyone or anything to approve of our worth. When you stop listening to the voices of others and speak out with your own and when you stop wondering if you’re good enough because you finally know you are; that is when you are at your most powerful.

Namjoon’s last statement is a poignant call to action that comes from his heart, directed towards all out there who live in self-doubt and feel like they have no voice.

“I’m Kim Namjoon, RM of BTS. I’m an idol and an artist from a small town in Korea. Like most people, I’ve made many mistakes in my life. I have many faults and I have many more fears, but I am going to embrace myself as hard as I can, and I’m starting to love myself, little by little. What is your name? Speak yourself!”.

From Abraham Lincoln’s post-battle “All Men Are Born Equal” speech at Gettysburg to Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of freedom, the ideologies and beliefs of many have moved us to act and to believe. Yet, BTS's words about self-acceptance is something important that no one should overlook.

Please realize that you should learn to love yourself and to speak yourself, because no matter who you are, you and your voice matter.

Allegra Jade Dreanda Isdar, 14 Years Young, Writer

Isdar Andre Marwan, Positive Psychologist

Hollingsworth, Julia. “How South Korean Group BTS Became the World's Biggest Boy Band.” CNN, Cable News Network, 9 June 2019, https://edition.cnn.com/2019/06/01/asia/bts-kpop-us-intl/index.html.

“In Focus: What We Learned From RM's Speech At The United Nations.” ABS, https://lifestyle.abs-cbn.com/articles/7012/chalk/in-focus-what-we-learned-from-rms-speech-at-the-united-nations.

Kim, Namjoon. “United Nations' Generation Unlimited.” United Nations' Generation Unlimited. 24 Sept. 2018, New York City, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhJ-LAQ6e_Y