Being vs. Becoming
When I was younger, I was much more confident of my opinions. If I believed I was right about something, I was dead sure I couldn’t be proved wrong. I was able to argue for what I believed to be right, and while I wouldn’t have admitted it to an opponent, nothing ever happened to me to admit even to myself that I was horribly wrong.
I don’t know if age makes you see things more perceptively or that your range of experiences bring your earlier opinions far more to the test—but I have been increasingly reflecting on the many things I have been wrong about. I have increasingly started holding my opinions slightly more loosely than I did before…realising that if I was proved wrong about A when I never imagined I would be…what’s to say I cannot be proved wrong about B?
I feel that this newfound realisation has made me a more empathetic person. I understand now that when I was younger, I simply hadn’t seen life enough to understand why people might be forced to do the things that they did or even be foolish enough to do the things that they did. I said “I would never do this” with so much confidence in those days—I’m not implying that I did them—but that I feel that you really cannot say what you would or would not do unless you’re in that specific position yourself with all its attendant ramifications.
I was reading this little snippet about ‘being vs. becoming’ and how at an early point in our lives we commit to a ‘being’ instead of seeing ourselves as always ‘becoming’ or a ‘work-in-progress’ if you like, to use modern day jargon. I guess most people are indeed ‘beings’ in that they rarely open themselves up to the experience of becoming a better version of themselves, content with who they have become.
When a child is born and is growing, it is always a wonder what habits it learns, what personality it starts developing, what moods it exhibits. We are always on tenterhooks (I have two really small nieces so I should know!) about whether it will pick up a wrong habit or if giving in to its wishes will make it stubborn or whether watching too much of the mobile screen will reduce its attention span and interest in studies…we are conscious of how every action and reaction could have an influence on what being it becomes. Why do we assume that this process simply grinds to a halt at some early age…or that it should halt?
The truth is, speaking for myself, the realisation of how even my most cherished truths were not really enduring truths but momentary ones has made me confront my being…because isn’t who we are to a large extent a function of what and how we think or feel. And I see that as a good thing because as a child discovering the joy of becoming… I too sense a joy in knowing that I am not ‘who I am’ but I am always ‘becoming’ who I am…and that means I need not fear being wrong or having to change my opinions…I need to embrace it…because it only brings me closer to who I can be.