Who do you think I am?
Who am I?
It’s the age-old struggle, the question we’ve all asked ourselves at least once in our lives. This search for our genuine identity begins when we are young and never seems to be completely done. There’s peace with continued self-discovery, but is there ever a point where one can at last leave the doubts behind and say “Aha! That is who I am”? As I ask this very question to myself, I can’t help but sing the familiar strains of the song “Who am I” from Les Miserables. So perhaps before going on, I’ll take a brief musical interlude.
Jean Valjean’s moral dilemma brings to mind the difficulties involved when attempting to create a new identity. We probably haven’t escaped slavery and then adopted a new persona as mayor of a small town, but there may be pieces of our past that we’d like to leave behind. Haven’t you ever wanted to start anew? Think of the possibilities, of the freedom, the power. Imagine if you moved to a completely different city where no one knew you at all. Then you could be whoever you wanted to be. Couldn’t you?
The concept of who we are is a rather broad topic, one that I could never hope to broach in a few meagre paragraphs. So I want to focus on a peculiar transition that occurs when it comes to this question. What I’m wondering is this: how does “Who am I?” become “Who do you think I am?” There is a transfer of power going on here, a kind of giving of the self, or at least the creation of it, to the other. We don’t just see a clear and accurate reflection of ourselves. Instead we peer into a mirror with millions of messages scrawled across the glass. We see words that describe us and define us, or at least we think they do, and then a strange thing happens. We let the messages leave the reflection and seep into our souls, we let them write across our hearts and weigh on our minds throughout the day. We let them influence what we think and what we do and how we feel. An impression becomes an identity, and self becomes a trap, a cage from which we can never escape. Can we ever create anew from these stifling labels and this desperate need for approval?
Approval. That must be what we need (or what we think we need), otherwise our concept of self needs some adjusting. We seem to have internalized a sense that we are always being watched even when we are alone in the room. As we sit there in the company of only our own presence, we still see in terms of what others see, we still act in terms of what we shouldn’t do and dwell on what the world would think if they knew.
But there is no guard to this prison. I am beginning to realize that I am the only one who keeps myself behind these bars. I am the one who denies myself freedom, because I am the one who places importance on the sources of love that will never be enough. Am I looking for affirmation? For assurance that I am special and that “who I am” matters? If so, I may get it… But if I base myself around these fleeting words, I will crumble when approval is denied because I have become dependent on its delivery. I don’t want to need a kind interaction from a friend or a good grade or recognition in a group to feel special. The moments will pass so quickly that I’ll want more, more praise and affection and love before they’re even over.
I want to stop feeling the need to be completed. If I am waiting for others to complete me, their conditional human love will be sadly insufficient to satisfy my deepest longings for comfort and love. Instead I’m going to turn to God, to the One who knows every single truth about me, rather than just the way I display and distort these realities, and loves me anyway. If I turn in this direction, I don’t need to keep going back for more, because He will fill me with a love and peace and joy and faith that transcend these earthly bounds. He knows who I truly am and with His light I can allow that self to shine, unafraid of the judgement it may face, unabashed and unashamed when it cannot conform or proves itself to be different and unique.
Who am I? My journey isn’t nearly at its end. But the thought fills me with peace, not fear, when I look within and up above. I think it’s time to stop looking around me, to help others and let them help me, rather than ask and expect from them more than any one person on earth has to give.