Of resolutions and labels

With every New Year come resolutions and the struggle to turn these resolutions into habit to carry us forward for the rest of the year and beyond. This year, I woke up with the sun over Bukit Tunku on New Year’s Day; along with a number of runners doing what we crazies do best. After a whole year of being sidelined due to injury, the new year brought new hope to me to start training again, to again hold that label of “runner” with pride.

Having lost over 30kg steadily over the past 4 years; running started as a resolution for me, and one that quickly turned to habit. I think most people have similar resolutions at least once in their lives, to just lose X amount of weight and inches off the waistline every start of the year.

Five years ago saw me having that particular resolution – to just stop feeling sluggish, unattractive and overweight. Prior to 2010, I have never been athletic, preferring to chase academic achievements and being a band geek. As an OCD planner extraordinaire, I planned what I would like to achieve, the amount of kilos I would like to shed and the distance I would like to run without stopping; progressing every year and not just limiting my resolution on a 365-day basis.

I can still remember that first night I laced up my very first pair of running shoes. I used the lampposts lining the riverside of the UQ campus as a guide, making a promise to myself to get to the next lamppost every night, increasing the distance that I could run. To finally have crossed the line in Penang back in 2013, after a gruelling 42.195km was the climax of achievements for me. Last year, however, saw me struggling with the label simply because I no longer clocked in 50km a week.

Today, the pre-2010 me seems like another person altogether. What started as a resolution has now became a part of an identity for me. The fact that I run, at whatever pace and for how long a distance should never discount the fact that I do, run.

As I was trying to catch up with the pacers during New Year’s run, I mulled about whether there is a need for labels at all. It seems that nowadays, Malaysians are either labelling themselves or others, putting everyone into categorical boxes.

Not satisfied with dividing ourselves first by ethnicity and religion, then whether we support the government or the opposition; we are now placed in the box of either conservatives, extremists, moderates, liberals, “normal”, elitists, eminent, prominent, social activist; the list goes on.

It feels like we are so keen to differentiate everyone and happy to find faults about people and judge whether they are worthy of belonging to a certain clique, whether they do fit into a particular box. Worse, we tend to judge those who don’t think along the lines that we do as our enemies – to be fought with so much negativity and hatred, never to be tolerated.

Yet, I feel that we do need to feel empowered in our own identities that define who we are. Personally, I would tick the boxes: single, female, Malaysian, Malay, Muslim. That is who I identify with. As with running, it does not matter if others feel that I am not Malay enough, or Muslim enough; or I should not be a runner because I don’t run a sub-5 marathon or clock in 100km a week – what matters is that the combination of these things gave me my identity.

I think that being proud being a Malaysian and being confident about my own heritage and faith to a certain degree empowers me.

Yet, I also like to remember that we are all humans first and foremost, and in that, all of us want and aspire to similar things. All of us would concern ourselves with food, shelter, health, love, education and the ability to continuously learn new things either via books or experience, a job we like to do and the feeling of being able to contribute to the world.

I think as Malaysians, if we need to learn one thing from 2014 and its many tragedies, it’s this: we are all humans first. Despite being empowered about our identities and honouring our heritage or religion; tragedies do not choose skin colour or faith.

It is our responsibilities to respond with kindness and tolerance regardless of others’ liberal or extremist leanings, faith, or ethnicity. It is our response as fellow humans that will make the difference.

I guess, towards the end of my run on New Year’s, I found my resolution for 2015 – to be more human. – January 8, 2015.

* This is the personal opinion of the writer or publication and does not necessarily represent the views of The Malaysian Insider.