What am I doing this for?

                                                                                                              Hahn, Young

    Soon after my college graduation, I found a job in the hospital and worked for about a year in a suburb city of Gangwon Province, where traditional beauty pageant was held each year. Swimwear screening fortunately wasn’t a requirement for the contest, but participants had to dress in casual attire to pass the preliminary round, and competed in the finals wearing hanbok, a traditional Korean dress.

    The colleagues working in my hospital filled out a recommendation form and urged me to enter the pageant. I refused resolutely at first; however, forced by their continuous appeasement and  pressure, I reluctantly accepted to participate with youthful ardor and perhaps reliance upon the fact that I scarcely knew anyone in the town.

    In preparation for the casual dress screening, I bought a ‘made-in-USA’ dress mingled in the colors of yellow, red, orange, and a hint of purple as if they were dancing together to complete a bright abstract painting, Miniskirts were a popular fashion trend in those days, but t considering the local atmosphere, I chose a more conservative one-piece dress. Wearing the dress of beautiful design and soft touch in the sweet age of 22, I was enraptured by a muzzy mood like walking on the cloud in a dream. My colleagues made time even during work hours to come by to applaud and loudly cheer for me. Their support greatly the atmosphere and I passed the first screening process with ease.

    The final stage to select the most beautiful lady in town was held two days later. I prepared my costumes with much consideration and went to the on-call room. I wore a warm pink and flowery embossed skirt with a white and thin striped jeogori(Korean traditional jacket) that had pink cuffs on the sleeves. My coworkers were quite enthusiastic, encouraging me with overwhelming compliments on my selection of the well-put-together and fashionable hanbok. I was soon standing in a line with the other participants. Although I was a little nervous, nothing there specifically brought out any concerns. My turn was about in the middle. Three or four girls went onto the stage and came back. At the corner, I was watching a beautiful woman who stood on the stage just before my turn. She seemed to have an expert knowledge of the pageant, subsequently making thorough preparations. Wearing perfect traditional costumes and Korean bridal crown on her head, she elegantly made a deep formal bow on the stage. The audience gave her a thunderous applause.

    At last, it was my turn and I slowly walked toward the stage. Out of nowhere, a thousand thoughts tangled up my brain. “What am I doing this for?” “Why am I taking part of this meaningless act?” “ gosh, all I want to do is just quit right now!” Such thoughts had an overwhelming weight to prevent me from even reaching the center of the stage, and I just ended up retracing back to the room. Consequently, my action caused a huge deduction of points to complete at the finals.

Later I felt quite embarrassed and undeserving when I was given a gold ring that had the value about 11 grams as a participation prize. For a good while, I tried to forget about the event of that day, because I can’t reminisce the incident without the sense of shame and embarrassment.

    Years have passed, and I think about the day in the small town whenever I need patience and courage. Why did I behave like that? Why at that crucial moment did I come up with such erratic thought? Regarding the whole occasion as meaningless was perhaps just an effort to persuade myself: in fact, I might have reacted that way because I could not cope with such nervousness and pressure. Did I arm myself with an excuse and just give up instead of advancing forward bravely?

Perhaps it was the starting point of taking the easy way out by “giving up” in the journey of my life. Whenever the thought “What am I doing this for?” dragged me down at critical times, I let go of what I was holding on to. I became comfortable by giving up, and often fell into illusion that what was avoided could soon be forgotten.

    My habit of stopping and walking away continued for a long time not just with my own affairs, but also with other matters as well. But even with such characteristic, there are things that I have been eager to keep doing continuously: endure patiently, express love, lending a helping hand, stand by someone’s side in silence, cry together, listen to others attentively, and so on. All the things I have received so far, I believe I should reciprocate to others as well. These are what I want to hold on to for the rest of my life. But what if I stop and walk away in the middle of working on them again?

Evidently, I still doubt myself a bit, but even if the question” what am I doing this for?” is audible to my ears once more, I presume I am now a stronger person who doesn’t give up anymore, because I have gained the courage to withstand and overcome any situation.