Every time I ask people that question, I get different answers. How do you describe who you are to yourself? What parameters do you require to define who you are? This is important because your identity is who you are. No matter how difficult the question is, it’s important that you get to answer it for yourself, sooner or later, because this is the reason why you are where you are today. An understanding of your identity or what you perceive yourself to be, is what has brought you this far in life, and is also what is going to take you further.
So, how can you define yourself? There are many ways. How can you know what makes you different from another person, brother or friend? What makes you the person you can discern as being unique? So many questions right? Those elements or parameters you use to define or describe yourself with a deep conviction are what I call your identity.
Some people describe themselves by their emotions, social or family roles. Some people say; I am a loving person, a peaceful person, while some use their roles to describe themselves. Some say I am a mother, and being a mother is not just superficial. A mother is a teacher, a care giver, a stimulator, creative, etc. You can’t just say I am a mum, your identity surpasses that. How else can you define yourself? Some use their jobs/careers or even metaphors to define themselves. You hear people say things like I am the king of the hill; I am a star going somewhere to shine, etc. W ell, these metaphors go a long way in influencing how you view yourself, how you think, and what is possible for you to achieve in life.
On the contrary, some people use their past experiences as a feed back in describing themselves. Some say; I am a loser, I am worthless, I am a wimp. Whatever it is that you have experienced in the past, it is not who you are, your past experiences cannot define your identity. Also, you get to ask some people the same question and they begin to tell you what they are not whilst telling you little or nothing about what they are or what they perceive themselves to be. Don’t base your whole identity on who you are not, or what you are not, otherwise you’ll discover you are quite limited in definition of who you are.
How are you defining yourself? Who are you? What is the essence of your life? I keep asking you these questions because I want you to keep asking yourself, and keep refining the answer. So whatever parameters you think you can use, your emotions, roles, future, metaphors, etc, its important you know your identity is hidden inside you and it can be discovered. One of the greatest challenges of identity is that most of us are not conscious of our beliefs of who we think we are. If we can really get conscious of our beliefs of who we think we are, it makes it easy for us to stir ourselves. Then we can see the limitations and benefits.
