How RM of BTS Is Speaking Self-Love Into The Lives Of Young People
“Hope shouldn’t be a luxury. Hope is something we must have in our lives, something that we should always have in our hearts. I wish it will be more natural for a person to have hope in our world today.”
As true fans (ARMYs) of BTS, we would appreciate and love each and every member of the band. However for today, I would like to pay particular appreciation to our bandleader RM (Kim Namjoon) — on how he has inspired and continues to inspire young people in their journey to discover who they really are and what loving one self really means. This piece will touch on the various insights he has shared with their audience over the years, paired with my perspective on why the messages he delivers is of great importance.
RM’s Speech At The UN General Assembly
BTS was invited to the United Nations for Generation Unlimited in September 2018. I wanted to pick out aspects of RM’s speech that really struck a chord with me.
He mentioned that there was a lyric in one of their early albums that goes, “My heart stopped when I was maybe nine or ten.” He gave context to that lyric, explaining that this was the turning point where he started being conscious of what other people thought of him. “I stopped looking up at the stars at night. I stopped daydreaming. I tried to jam myself into moulds that other people made.” It got to the point where his own voice was drowned out by the voices of others. He wondered who he was — it was at this stage he had lost his own name and his own identity.
The bandleader commented that despite our aim for perfection, it is human for us to keep stumbling and falling in this life. He talked about being a normal 24-year-old beneath his Idol self: “Like most people, I made many mistakes in my life.” However, the downs we go through in our lives is not the end of the world. He talked about his own journey to love the person that he is, saying, “I have many faults and I have many fears, but I am going to embrace myself as hard as I can, and I’m starting to love myself, little by little.”
BTS had launched the “Love Myself” campaign with UNICEF, based on their belief that true love first begins first with loving themselves. But what comes after learning to love who you are? The bandleader pleads to the public to speak themselves: to unhesitatingly, unapologetically, unflinchingly be who they are. “Find your name, and find your voice by speaking yourself,”he emphasised during his speech.
RM has always been inclusive of people from different backgrounds, beliefs, and identities. He celebrated uniqueness and individuality, and his stance was clear throughout his speech. He concluded with the following: “I would like to ask all of you. What is your name? What excites you and makes your heart beat? Tell me your story. I want to hear your voice, and I want to hear your conviction. No matter who you are, where you’re from, your skin colour, gender identity: speak yourself.”
During Concerts / Ending mentions
The boys are known to express their appreciation for the love they receive from their ARMY’s as well as their appreciation for the opportunities they are fortunate to have as a result.
During their “Love Yourself” tour in Citifield, RM thanked ARMY’s for teaching him what loving himself is — as he himself did not really know what it meant. He was honest in talking about the progression of his own journey of self-love, and how he is still searching: “Loving myself is my whole life goal until my death. And what is loving myself, what is loving yourself? I don’t know. Who can define their own method and the way of loving myself? It is our mission to define our way to love ourselves.”
In the beginning of May 2019, BTS had the opportunity to open their “Love Yourself: Speak Yourself World Tour” at the Rose Bowl in the United States. The boys were touched by this opportunity: not only were they able to perform at an iconic venue, kick-off the stadium world tour they have always dreamt of — they also succeeded in having their concerts completely sold-out where they were playing. RM was touched by the monumental opportunity and the love shown by the fans, which he expressed: “Wherever you are, whatever language you speak, however old you are — we are one. We speak the same voice, we speak the same language — this is what we call a community!.” On the last night of performing at MetLife in New Jersey, he humbly thanked their US audience for embracing the 7 boys from Korea — showing them that music transcends languages.
Other than encouraging their fans to love who they are, RM shared his insights about life during their “The Most Beautiful Moment In Life: On Stage” tour. These insights were based on his observation of himself, as well as the people around him.
He talked about what the pursuit of happiness should really mean, saying: “Happiness is not something that you have to achieve. You can still feel happy during the process of achieving something.” I felt that this was an important message to speak on as we are often so caught up in the goal, that we disregard how we are treating ourselves and others during the journey. Often times we slave over obtaining our goal without enjoying the process. Of course it will be hard work. It would not always be rainbows and sunshine. But this life shouldn’t just revolve around achieving an end goal — we should also appreciate the process: of the people we meet, the lessons we learn, and celebrating the small milestones we meet during our journey to greater heights.
As humans, we are bound to face many obstacles. Some obstacles may be bigger than others, some obstacles may also just be us standing in our way. RM aptly put forth: “We all experience difficult times since we’re born, right? We all have different kinds of troubles, but nobody wants to give up in the beginning. We didn’t lose our dreams because we wanted to give up. We didn’t go after our dreams because we knew we’d give up.”
That’s what life is all about, isn’t it? There will be both the good and the bad, the ups and the downs, the happiness and the sadness. We can’t always just have good things happening to us, but our vision of our goals should not digress either. “Something can be beautiful, even when there is something horrible.” We may not always be able to correct or erase the horrible — but we can choose to grow from adversity rather than bow down to it. Sometimes the most painful lessons we have to learn are also the stages in our lives that we grow the most. “Life can be tough or it can be good. But if we can shift our perspective, these moments can also be the most beautiful moments of our lives.”
He was surprisingly candid with the anger he recognises in himself: “I see so much anger within myself and in other people. I have felt discouraged and I get disappointed with myself many times. Whoever you are or whatever you do, I think everyone feels the same way. There is too much anger in this world, but don’t think that people are only going to hurt you and blame them for everything bad.” To conclude, RM talked about how we should all take the step to turn things around. Instead of focusing on our rage, we should learn how to use our energy wisely and overcome our own limits.
Vlive / Video logs
Here is a compilation of insights RM has shared through his livestreams and vlogs:
“I think life is about being lost. Life is just a series of continuous wandering, and I think this is especially true for me right now because I am young. It’s normal. Everyone feels lost at times and worries about themselves, everyone worries about where they are going. Everyone is confused about where they should belong — everyone goes through it.”
I was grateful for how outspoken he was about the period of time he too felt confused and lost. He also reminded the viewers that it is normal to feel this way every now and then throughout our lives. I found myself being stuck in this recent season of my life: questioning my career, my motivations, and why am I doing all this. Hearing this affirmation may not make my path less cloudy, but I felt comforted by the reminder that I would be able to find my way out of this eventually.
“I think there is no need to live your life based on the standards of others. Everyone says “Dream Big”, but I don’t think you have to live so fiercely like that all the time. So if you hear, ‘You should be more diligent’ or ‘You don’t seem to have a dream’ — don’t be discouraged. That is not the truth. Who knows, the person telling you this may not know what he wants to do with his life too. Trust yourself and live a healthy and happy life. Find what makes you happy, and work hard for it.”
I mentioned earlier about feeling stuck in this current stage of my life. A part of my agitation comes from my history of aiming to be a high achiever for the past 5 years of my life without stopping. I have now reached a stage where I have completely lost love for what I have been working on for the past few years — I was agitated by my sudden lost of purpose. Although I was still able to remain passionate about my other crafts, the cause I dedicated a majority of my time to for the past 5 years had flown out the window. RM’s words was a reminder for me to try and re-discover why I loved what I did, all over again.
“Everyone suffers in their life. There are many sad days. But rather than sad days, we all hope to have better days. That’s what makes us live. That’s what makes us dream. That’s what drives us to desire for something.”
Some may view hope as a luxury — but I agree with RM’s view instead that hope is the very force that holds us together. Hope is a reminder that bad days won’t last forever. Hope encourages us to work towards our dreams. Hope allows us to see the bright side of things. Hope reminds us to have a greater appreciation of our lives. Truly, hope is what makes us live.
“The Korean word for ‘human’ and the word for ‘love’ are so similar. The pronounciation sounds similar as well. The pronounciation for these are very similar. Humans throughout their lives continue to love, right? We really live with so many different forms of love within us. Since one can’t really live without love in their lives, I believe the words ‘human’ and ‘love’ were made similarly on purpose because they are actually so closely related in that manner. There is a reason, don’t you think? And there’s the word ‘to live’ as well. ‘Human’, ‘love’, ‘to live’. These three words are the things we need throughout our lives, and we should not take that away from ourselves.”
RM’s comparison of the words ‘human’, ‘love’, and ‘to live’ showcased just how well-read he is. As much as we don’t want to admit it, we do need each other in our lives. But how do we maintain our relationships and friendships in our lives? By learning about the people around us and loving them, caring about them. Although we should be able to enjoy being in our own company, we were not meant to live/go through this life alone.
“Having so many thoughts at this stage in your life can be compared to the spreading out of your branches. This is when you will want to discover more about yourself. As you spread those branches, although it may confuse and hurt you now, know that you will enter into the next stage of life one day. As you grow older, your branches that have spread wide will be pruned and it will be a very large tree.
I’m sure there are some of us out there who feel this way, right? You would have a lot on your mind all the time. You would think that you’re always worrying more than others, wondering if you’re the weird one. If you think of it like the process of a tree in its young days (growing up), you will be able to look back on this as an experience. Of course, it will be hard. You will go through all the pruning, chopping, cutting — and it will hurt. But after those times, I’m sure it will become a great, great tree. I hope that each one of you will all become great.”
RM’s explanation painted a clear picture of what it meant to grow into each stage of our lives. The older we grow, the more eager we are to know, the more our ‘branches’ spread out. Along the way, things may get messy — we may fall, and may get into our own inner turmoil. This is when the ‘pruning’ happens: we start to distinguish between the traits we want to keep, the traits we should get rid of, and how we want to portray ourselves to the world. As with every growing process, we will be susceptible to getting hurt. But after all these trying times, we will come out from this stronger, bolder, and better.
Through exploring the many insights shared by RM, I hope you recognise that self-love is beyond just treating yourself better or embracing who you are. Self-love is also a process of growth: to be able to figure out what you want, what is right and wrong, and discover the kind of life you really want to live.
To conclude, I’d like to quote this last insight:
“They may think you’re too young or you’re too naive. But eventually, fools change the world. I believe that. So let’s believe in ourselves more.”
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