We must have an identity. It is something that is pushed on us in American society. This identity is how the world knows us, and it is the filter through which we see the world. Our identity is a place to hang our hats; without who we are, who would we be?
So much in our lives is about trying to maintain, create or get rid of an identity. Being a runner is a great thing until you damage a knee and realize that you may never run again. The grief from losing this identity is profound.
You are a smoker and know you shouldn’t be. It’s bad for you, for the kids in your household and it costs a fortune. You constantly beat yourself up for smoking. You think often how you should quit. You even wish, right as you are enjoying a cigarette, that you didn’t smoke. You hate yourself for being a smoker at all.
The woman down your street really wants to be a doctor. She’s been thinking about being a doctor since she was ten. Yet, right now, she’s at home with four kids and no money. She helps her kids with their homework, but isn’t really completely there. Her mind is on what she didn’t do with her life, what she wishes she could do, what she believes will make her happy.
As we search to become something, as we hold on to what we are, as we try to push what we don’t like about ourselves away, we lose something so precious. We lose the present moment. We lose everything about right now. We become so attached to who we are that we forgot everything else about ourselves. We hate something we do and so we imagine what it will be like when we no longer do it. We dislike our lives so we live in a fantasy about what it might be, someday.
Can you, right now, just be who you are? Can you do it without judgment, without hoping, dreaming, wanting to be something else? If you can, even for a moment, you’ll get a taste of paradise.
