Honestly, Get a Life (and Get Off My Ass)

One of my favourite things to observe about people is how they introduce themselves.

Do they use their full government name, or do they go by a nickname, a childhood one, a family one, or something like “Bob” because they used to be overweight?

Do they immediately follow their name with the university they attended, the degree they took, or the workplace they’re currently affiliated with?

Do they feel the need to anchor their identity to a role, an institution, or a name badge?

And that’s where it gets interesting.

Identity, once you fully surrender to it, becomes both a foundation and a trap. There is nothing wrong with being proud of your background. But the moment you believe your identity starts and ends with an institution, that’s the moment you unknowingly begin to shrink. The moment you think “this is all I am” is the moment you stop imagining who else you could become.

I’ve seen this in subtle cultural patterns around me. Take the girls who went to SSP, STF, or other all-girls boarding schools in Malaysia. Many of them continue dressing the same way right into college: t-shirt, pants, bawal selempang. It’s not the outfit itself that matters. It’s the symbolism. The homogeneity. The way a school culture can follow someone long after they’ve left the building, shaping not just their wardrobe but sometimes their worldview, their confidence, their friendships, and even their politics and values.

That’s just a harmless example. But it reflects a deeper truth: institutions have the power to mould us so strongly that we sometimes forget we can reinvent ourselves.

Colonisation is the starkest version of this. Before independence, many Malays were sent to British-modeled boarding schools. Prestigious, disciplined, and aspirational. These schools promised opportunity, but they also trained students to operate within a worldview designed by the coloniser. You learn to read, write, speak, and think in English, but the cost is subtle: you start to see Englishness as the benchmark. Education becomes a tool, but your mind becomes confined. Even when these students later went abroad, many remained trapped in the same mental boundaries, unable to imagine life outside the systems that taught them who they should be. And unless someone consciously separates their identity from their educational pedigree, from their grades, from their career path, they may go through their entire life never realising how much of them was shaped, not by choice, but by conditioning.

That’s why having a life outside your formal affiliations is not just healthy, it’s essential. You need to build an identity that isn’t dependent on achievements, positions, institutions, or the approval of a collective. Find hobbies that don’t earn you CV points. Explore interests that have nothing to do with who you think you’re supposed to be. Understand what actually excites you, angers you, inspires you, and moves you, not what your organisation tells you should matter.

Because here’s the thing right, when you bind your identity too tightly to an institution, you slowly lose the ability to see that institution clearly. You stop questioning. You stop thinking critically. You become afraid to disagree, afraid to disappoint, afraid to step even a little outside the script. Loyalty becomes silence, and belonging becomes obedience. And that’s dangerous, not just for you, but for the values you claim to hold.

Take me, for example. I love Malaysia with every fibre of my being; make a joke about me switching nationality, and I might actually throw hands. But that love has never meant blind loyalty. If anything, real love demands honesty. My patriotism is rooted in the belief that you can only care for something by holding it accountable.

So when the Dewan Rakyat Speaker, TS Johari, made a sexist remark towards a female minister, I didn’t just laugh it off. When cases of femicide among schoolgirls kept rising, I couldn’t pretend everything was fine just because it hurts to admit that my “negaraku” can fail its own daughters. It does sting, it shakes something in me, but love without accountability isn’t love at all. I don't want to delude myself into calling it patriotic.

And again, coming back to my point, when you let your identity fuse with an organisation, that is exactly how your values start to erode.

I witnessed this firsthand when I wrote that UKEC article. Some reactions were emotional, defensive, and sometimes even hostile. A particular comment went so far as to leave a smear-campaign-style comment. For what? For saying something that needed to be said? For voicing concerns that many admit privately but are too afraid to attach their names to? I always appreciate constructive feedback, but when these comments are left in a bad manner, it says a lot about how some people are simply too attached to the organisation's identity to tolerate critique. They cannot separate criticism of an organisation from criticism of themselves. They no longer see issues as they are; they see them through the lens of allegiance. Their emotions, their outrage, even their logic get filtered through what they’ve tied their sense of self to.

And that is exactly why you need a life outside of study, work, and organisations.

If the only parts of you that feel “real” are the ones validated by titles, committees, roles, or affiliations, then you will always be beholden to them. Your self-worth will depend on their approval. You will defend them when they’re wrong, stay silent when you feel uneasy, and stay loyal even when your values whisper otherwise.

Eventually, you have to sit with yourself and ask:

Who am I when all the labels fall away?
Who am I without the university hoodie, the degree title, the job designation, the committee badge, the alumni network?

If you can’t answer that, then you’re not truly living; you’re simply inheriting identities handed to you.

Build a life that belongs to you, not one authored by an institution. That’s the only way to become someone who thinks independently, speaks honestly, and lives with genuine integrity.

And to those who leave the nasty comments, get off my ass and get a life.