Celebrating the Uniqueness of You
The Intriguing Puzzle of Personal Identity
Let’s start with a very simple but incredibly important question. Are you ready?
Who are you?
It might seem to be one of the most basic requests for information and it’s a question we’re used to being asked in all kinds of social and work situations. But how do you usually reply? How do you answer this most simple, yet potentially profound, of questions?
Most people reply by stating their name and then they usually add a few words to describe what kind of work they do. But the question of personal identity deserves a deeper level of consideration. After all, if we only accept the most superficial aspects of our personality as being a valid description of our identity, what might we be missing?
Unlike a drop of water which loses its identity when it joins the ocean, humans do not lose their being in the society in which they live. Man's life is independent. He is born not for the development of the society alone but for the development of his self.
-??????B. R. Ambedkar
The fact is that the answers you give depend very much on the context of the question. You might describe yourself as the child of your parents, the brother or sister of your siblings, the neighbour, the commuter, the student, the employee, the manager, the parent, grandparent, uncle, auntie, team player, friend, fan – yes, the list seems endless. But which – if any – of these titles accurately describes who you are? Which of these many titles is truly complete as an adequate description of who you are?
The origins of any confusion you might experience in attempting to describe yourself can be traced to our early childhood years, those pivotal times in our lives when we first learned to play dome of the roles that were designed to make us socially acceptable.
Gradually, the layers and complexity of our roles deepened until it became almost impossible to separate our sense of identity from the masks we learned to wear. The masks – the range of diverse elements of whatever we learned to accept as our personality – became indistinguishable from our sense of self.
The ego, however, is only an illusion. It is nonetheless a very influential one. Letting the ego-illusion become your identity can prevent you from knowing your true self. Ego, the false idea of believing that you are what you have or what you do, is a backwards way of assessing and living life.
-??????Wayne Dyer
And this could be the root cause of a number of important issues.
If we mistake the roles we play for our deeper identity, we inevitably end up harbouring a number of completely understandable delusions about our deeper identity. Think about that for a moment. Are the various roles you play truly a complete reflection of who you are? We expend an enormous amount of energy maintaining these roles and largely superficial descriptions even though they don’t even represent who we really are. No wonder that our lives so often feel exhausting.
It’s obviously very frustrating to live life pretending to be something – or someone – that isn’t real, accepting the role’s description as a valid alternative to who we really are. The description becomes a convenient substitute for our authentic self.
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And if we don’t really know who we are, how on earth can we expect to know who anyone else is? All of our judgements and evaluations become an extension of the role we happen to be playing at any one time. Perhaps that’s why the world so often appears to be such an impossibly confusing place. It’s a direct result of a global identity crisis. Nobody knows who they really are!
All discomfort comes from suppressing your true identity.
-??????Bryant H. McGill
Playing these acquired roles absorbs an enormous amount of time and energy and leads to a deep sense of frustration, unhappiness and ultimately to a feeling of being completely fake. Hardly the best way to experience the wonder of our deeper self! Many people today suffer from an abiding anxiety that they’ll be exposed as frauds. They know that the roles they play are artificial. They feel that their whole existence is built upon the fragility of these superficial and shifting foundations.
So, it’s time to take a closer look at the roles we play, the way we disguise our true identity. This is a perfect moment for you to take a look in the mirror and remind yourself that for every role you play, that this is not who you truly are. Say the words. Shake your head. “This is not who I am” Begin the wonderful process of freeing yourself from this lifetime of servitude and enslavement. Unchain yourself from all of the roles that you’ve been playing since childhood. Let’s discover who’s been concealed beneath all those various roles and conditioned reflexes.
Make a declaration right now that you do not have to be perfect.
This is a major point. You don’t have to pretend to be the perfect child, the perfect sibling, the perfect employee, spouse, parent or anything else. It’s time to discover what lies beneath the masks you’ve been wearing for far too long. Perfection is not the natural condition for human beings. Abandon all pretense about perfection. It’s absolutely fine to be who you are – and that often involves making mistakes on a daily basis. Mistakes are life’s way of showing that you’re making progress. When you don’t have to pretend to be perfect, you’re free to try new things, to fail, to make mistakes and to learn how to succeed. Freeing yourself from the acting parts you’ve been playing for most of your life is one of the most liberating and empowering steps you will ever take in this life.
Are you ready right now for a completely fresh approach to life’s great adventure? Get in touch with us today for a free session to discover how the growing global movement for personal growth, success, change and empowerment can enhance your life!
Greg Parry created The Wellness Foundation and the Cognitive Empowerment Programs specifically to help people master their stress, overcome their limitations and explore the power of their true potential.
If you enjoy these blogs, you can imagine how much fun it is to have Greg in the room as an inspirational and highly perceptive speaker. If you’d like to invite Greg to talk to your company or organisation or event, feel free to get in touch.
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