It’s Okay to Not Be Okay — Maybe No One Is Actually the Villain

 There was something about the title It’s Okay to Not Be Okay that made me fall in love with this drama even before I knew where the story was going.

Maybe because the sentence itself feels like something we rarely allow ourselves to believe.

At the beginning, though, I honestly thought this drama was going to make me depressed.

                                                      

I am already someone who gets emotional easily. I tend to absorb feelings, situations, and sometimes even fictional characters more deeply than I probably should. So while watching the first few episodes, I kept thinking, What have I started watching?

Everything felt dark. The characters carried so much pain. Everyone seemed broken in their own way.

But somewhere between the beginning and the final episodes, my perception completely changed.

I stopped looking for the bad person.

And instead, I started looking for the reason behind the person.

That, for me, became the most beautiful part of this drama.

Maybe nobody is actually wrong

We often divide people very easily.

Good person.

Bad person.

Selfish.

Cruel.

Difficult.

Crazy.

Victim.

Villain.

But It’s Okay to Not Be Okay slowly made me question that habit.

What if the person we call difficult is simply dealing with something we know nothing about?

What if someone's behavior is shaped by a completely different childhood, a different fear, a different wound, or a different reality?

That doesn't mean every action is right.

But perhaps the person themselves isn't necessarily wrong.

They may simply be responding to life from the only place they know how.

And I think that is where I started becoming emotionally connected to the characters.

I stopped asking, "Why is this person behaving like this?"

And started asking,

"What happened to this person that made them become this way?"

That small change in perspective made the entire story feel different.

I came looking for a love story, but found something else

Of course, there is romance.

And Moon-young and Gang-tae have a relationship that is intense, complicated and beautifully imperfect.

But by the end, I don't think the love story was the thing I carried with me the most.

What stayed with me was the idea of healing.

Not becoming a completely different person.

Not suddenly becoming happy.

Not magically forgetting everything that happened.

But learning to live without allowing the past to control every decision you make.

And perhaps that's what growing up actually means.

We don't always get freedom by escaping our past.

Sometimes we get freedom by finally understanding it.

The book that stayed with me

One of the things I especially loved was the idea of the final book created together by Moon-young and Sang-tae.

                                 

There was something deeply satisfying about their stories eventually coming together.

It felt like more than just publishing another children's book.

It felt like they were finally writing their own ending.

And perhaps that is why I connected with it so much.

Because sometimes we spend years believing that our story has already been written.

By our childhood.

By our circumstances.

By other people's expectations.

By our failures.

By things we couldn't control.

But maybe we are allowed to pick up the pen again.

Maybe the ending isn't fixed.

The hidden rope

There is another thought I couldn't stop thinking about after finishing this drama.

The idea of being tied down.

Sometimes we imagine that someone else is holding the rope.

Our family.

Society.

Our past.

Our circumstances.

Someone who hurt us.

Someone who didn't believe in us.

But what if, sometimes, the rope is actually held by us?

Not because we want to suffer.

Not because we consciously choose to remain stuck.

But because our own thoughts have convinced us that we cannot move.

I can't.

I'm not ready.

What if I fail?

What will people think?

Maybe this is just how my life is.

And slowly, those thoughts become a hidden rope.

Nobody can see it.

But we can feel it.

And perhaps the hardest realization is this:

Sometimes I am the person stopping myself.

Not everyone else.

Not always my circumstances.

Not always the people around me.

Sometimes, it's me.

And maybe freedom begins when I finally realize that I am also the person who can loosen the rope.

So, is it okay to not be okay?

I think the answer I took from this drama is yes.

It is okay to be confused.

It is okay to be emotional.

It is okay to carry wounds.

It is okay to have days when you aren't strong.

It is okay if healing takes longer than you expected.

But perhaps "not being okay" shouldn't become a permanent identity either.

We can acknowledge our pain without allowing it to become our entire personality.

We can understand why we became who we are—and still choose who we want to become next.

That is what I think this drama gave me.

Not sadness.

Not depression.

But empathy.

I began the drama afraid that it would make me feel heavier.

I finished it feeling strangely lighter.

Because instead of seeing a world full of bad people, I started seeing a world full of people carrying different stories.

And maybe that is the biggest lesson I took from It’s Okay to Not Be Okay:

People aren't always wrong. Sometimes, they are just hurting in ways we don't understand.

And perhaps we are all trying to find our way out of our own hidden ropes.

Some of us just haven't realized yet that we are holding the other end ourselves.

— Pvaishnavi