There is great power in knowing who you are; great benefit. This doesn't necessarily mean that the opposite is true; one is not weak because they do not have a true, reality-based understanding of their self. They are however prone to deception; there is vulnerability.
You've probably met someone who would fall into the category: they either tend to have some far-off ideas of self-aggrandizement, or they have no idea of the wonderful things they have to offer. The latter is something I'm passionate about, and I see so often and wish there something to put in the water; some easy remedy, but there isn't. Then again, people who are amazing and painfully aware of it, detract from said amazingness...not exactly attractive company to most.
Identity is a repeated theme to me, as I said it's something I'm passionate about and interested in. It's something I'm constantly exploring in myself, and constantly noticing in others. Lately I've been thinking about the weight of our identity, and where it lies. Were I to identify myself, some pieces would come the more I thought about it, or are things I could easily forget, even about who I would claim myself to be. And even further, sometimes I'm told things about myself, that for all my introspection, I find hard to believe. Sometimes, beyond all that, I think I am things, bad things that I am not; and until I am told otherwise, I might live under.
What does our self-proclaimed and self-recognized (in the sense of believed and bought-into) identity do in our lives? How does it compound on each interaction and activity throughout each day, to form our perceived identity tomorrow? It affects our motivations, it affects our relationships, our actions, our pursuits, our relenting. The security, or lack thereof, in who we are - and not what we do - is detrimental!
One of the biggest things I notice is that we do not look to secure places to reflect back to us who we are. We look to people who don't know us, well or maybe at all. We look to activities; hobbies or occupations. We look to cultures and societies. We tend to look to a mirror that says we are not enough, or we are not the standard. Since when is there a standard on identity?
If only it were simple, I often think. And it often seems simple...from the outside. But when you begin to untangle that knot of the compounding misleadings of the years of a person's life, you see that there is no simplicity. There may be clarity as you begin to see the weight of words, and interactions, and expectations...and countless other things, but never one single culprit.
There are days at the end of which I find that I am totally fulfilled; totally at peace, totally secure. Usually I think about it, and I am operating as who I am with no fear, concern or anxiety about if I am what I am, or doing what I am, or am what I'm doing! Those days have me thinking, among all the starkly obvious deluded souls - what if all those people could operate freely as who they are? What would this world look like? And how do we begin to see and be who we are?
