AFTER a nine-year music career, K-pop group BTS has just announced that they will be focusing on their solo activities.
They announced it in the most BTS way: having a one-hour televised dinner where they exchanged sincere and authentic conversations with each other and with ARMY, their fans. Instead of a written press release, they chose to share their unfiltered thoughts that led to their current decision.
His most recent song, released last week, Yet To Come (The Most Beautiful Moment), belies the promise that “the best is what comes next.” They’ve taught their fans a lot of life lessons along the way, and now they’re showing us what healthy change can look like.
I first heard about global superstars BTS from my young customers. While it’s common for people to talk about their interests and hobbies in psychotherapy, it’s quite another to hear how a musical group inspired them to love themselves.
I work with clients who struggle almost constantly with depression and hopelessness, and seeing their eyes light up as they talk about the band’s lyrics and stories and how they have made them feel less alone in the world made me realize that this was not just any band.
My clients’ experiences remind me that hope and inspiration can come from many places, and this includes music and art. The most cynical of people may scoff at the idea of artists as the subject of an op-ed, but I have personally witnessed their influence on the lives of people, young and old.
BTS-related news is no longer limited to music releases and promotions, but intersects with international diplomacy as they have spoken several times at the United Nations, most recently as youth ambassadors from South Korea with diplomatic passports.
Just a few days ago, the President of the United States, Joe Biden, invited them to the White House to speak about the increase in hate crimes in Asia. They have also been an important source of personal comfort for people of all ages during the pandemic.
BTS has been writing music related to social issues relevant to youth since their debut in 2013 and has continued to embody their company’s slogan of “music and artists to heal” while offering songs of hope and optimism at a time when people were struggling. with your sense. of meaning during pandemic lockdowns.
As a mental health professional, BTS was a gift, both to myself and to my clients. His songs made my young (and not so young) clients feel understood.
For those unfamiliar with BTS, they may not realize how human they are. They openly share, and mourn, their struggles and their confusion about where to take their careers. They communicate about their difficulty managing their characters onstage and offstage. They don’t claim to be perfect or pretend mistakes don’t happen.
These are the role models we want for our children: humans capable of making mistakes and striving to be better. His music became the language in which my clients can express to me how they really feel.
My clients freely cite anecdotes from the boys in our sessions as an analogy for what they themselves are going through.
BTS, with confessions of their own mental health and existential struggles, has contributed to the destigmatization of mental health more than any other public figure I know of.
Barely 24 hours after your announcement, I realize your fans are grieving in a slightly different way. The sadness is there, for sure. Perhaps a void for not knowing for sure what comes next. But I also see a quiet sense of understanding.
His fans are showing us what it means to feel sadness for oneself and happiness for someone else. ARMY and BTS always had this intuition for each other, and this time, it seems that ARMY instinctively knew that this change is what BTS needs.
BTS has worldwide appeal. – AFP
Change scares a lot of people. Our first impulse when we see change is to resist it. We generally prefer things to stay as they are.
As some customers have said, it’s better to have misery you know than misery you’ve never encountered before. This is partly why, for example, as much as we lament the existence of political dynasties, we still vote for their return.
It is better to have an imperfect system that is familiar than to rely on an unknown and untested change.
In parenting, we tend to go back to how we were raised to guide our own parenting styles as we are more familiar with its results compared to trying something completely new.
But still, changes are inevitable. There is no growth, no improvement, no change.
Some changes can make things worse, yes. And there are changes worth making.
To loosely paraphrase the serenity prayer, wisdom is knowing what changes are worth having. –Philippine Daily Inquirer/Asia News Network
Anna Cristina Tuazon is a registered psychologist in the Philippines and a columnist for the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
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