“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts.
But you have to stop sooner or later,
and then you still have to decide what to do.”
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| Source: Google Images |
I grew up as many others did, shaped and molded by the values instilled by parents. As children, my brother and I were quick to learn that crying gets us nowhere. When children throw tantrums in public, they cry angrily and cause a commotion, hoping their parents cave in due to embarrassment. When children want to give up on a challenge, they cry out of self-pity, to get their parents to sympathize.
Our parents were strict in teaching us that crying was no way to get what you wanted. When you cry, the only person you're embarrassing is yourself; because all my parents did when we ever shed a tear for purposes of persuasion was ignore us completely. That, obviously, made us feel extremely silly and immature, and it was a great method of shutting us up. We never used our tears to get our own ways after that.
Clearly, this is something many parents envied. "Wah, your children seldom cry ah?" other parents ask. My parents will then proceed to explain that crying is only attended to if we got physically hurt, or emotionally disturbed. Many a time our genuine tears have welcome kind words and reassuring hugs from our parents. Somehow, they just know if our tears were for real. The fact that we never cried just to get our way made our parents' lives way easier, and also pushed us to handle our emotions in a steady way, never crying just for show. I believe this made my brother and I slightly stoic, as some of our friends may testify, helping us gain the terms 'poker face' or 'heart of stone' as our personality descriptions.
This never affected me; in fact, I looked at my ability to hold my tears well with admiration. I prided myself in being able to not cry at sad movies with dying dogs, I prided myself in being able to not cry at friends' farewells, and I occasionally found myself mocking those who shed their tears so easily. "Pfft, these people. Weaklings."
But growing up through the hormonal, teenage years and finding myself being buried under responsibilities in various organisations (like church, college, work, etc.), I recently found tears on my cheeks a little more regularly than I would like. I broke down under huge workloads, I broke down under broken friendships, I broke down under desperate situations. I broke down, and I totally hated myself for that. In my mind, I saw myself weakening, succumbing to tear-shedding and self-pity. Things became worse when I even cried once or twice in front of others.
Because of how I was raised, in a way, I always saw crying as a negative thing. Crying is bad, crying gets you nowhere, crying only shows self-pity. Crying makes you a weak person and crying means you've given up. Of course, my parents never ever intended to instill these kinds of values in me, but having twisted their pure teachings into my own, society-pressured ideas, I viewed crying as the ultimate loser move. I disliked the fact that I cry so easily now.
But here's me, trying to tell you that crying really does get you nowhere, in a practical sense. I mean, if you broke a bowl and spilt soup all over your kitchen floor, crying isn't really going to clean up that mess, is it? If anything, it'll make your mess worse! However, as I am slowly journeying in self-discovery and handling my emotions, I have good news for myself.
I now realise that from experience, shedding tears have always meant something good was going to happen. It meant that now I am no longer bound by pressure, no longer bound by stress, but I am admitting that I have way too much on my plate, and letting it all go at once. Trust me, after a good cry, I am nowhere as irritable as before. It's the accumulated stress that always causes me to be uptight and moody, and I usually find a flip in my emotional state after having some tears spill over. And it is always this crying that helps me realise I am not as great as I think I am, and helps me map out a solution to my problems.
Most importantly, it is this crying that brings out the vulnerable part of me, totally knocking me down to my knees and literally crying out to the One above who continues to shower me with His love and grace, mending my wounds again and again. If that's not good, then what could it be?
Because, honestly, tears were created by God, and they were put there for a reason. Tears are a part of life after all.
"A time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance”
- Ecclesiastes 3:4 -