The world is a noisy place. Let me make a list of the obvious and not-so-obvious voices who exert influence on me:
1) Where I went to school, which class I was in, which subjects I majored in, where I have worked and how quickly I have achieved “success”, my financial status
2) Where I was born and raised, my family culture and familial expectations as the oldest grandson of my generation, my marital status, my sexual orientation
5) (Past, present and future) Bosses, colleagues, classmates, neighbours, friends, acquaintences, lovers, competitors
6) My ethnicity, my age, my height, my weight, my diet, my health, my clothes, my social media presence
There is nothing in my life that is not subject to scrutiny. Whether verbalized or not, these voices seep into every thought and conversation I have, every image I see and everything I do. At the start, I went along because I didn’t know any better. But as I grew older, the voice of disconnect grew louder. What’s important for me to distinguish is that it was a voice of disconnect, not discord. There was an inexplicable congruence in the work I was engaged in. Where the disconnect lay was in my understanding of why there was congruence.
Society had clearly steered me onto a path that would bring success. But year after year, the path felt increasingly not my own. It was society’s path, not mine.
So I started looking for ways to listen to my OWN voice. It has been a conscious journey of more than 15 years - getting to know a strangely familiar yet unknown voice; and not just getting to know … but to begin to pit this voice against the vastly more experienced and louder voice of society.
The one thing I have learned in the last 15 years has been that this inner voice of mine has never, ever steered me wrong. Not once. There have also been many instances where my inner voice and the voice of society have said the same thing. And I guess I’ve never been the sort of person to rebel without a cause. I’d rather be a rebel making conscious choices that come from a place of inner knowing. Because then I can base my decisions on “the choosing of” rather than “the opposition of”. It’s a far more serene path to take.
So for me, the work isn’t about going against society or asserting myself against anyone or anything. The journey is actually about sitting further back into my own voice.
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My name is Eu Jin. I embarked on a career as a professional actor after 20 years in the corporate world. I am a big advocate of personal growth in the performing arts. I dedicate time and energy in performing arts education, specifically in the arena of practical approaches to inner health because I believe that this lays the groundwork for a sustainable career as an artiste.
If you would like to engage in a conversation about a healthy inner life practice, please leave me a message on the "Contact" page of my website and a way to contact you. Thank you!