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0 By PainPKß
Who am I? Three words. A simple question, now is it?
One should think such a short question should be easy answered, but that isn’t nearly the case. Although this is such a fundamental question for every human being.
At a very early age, our subconsciousness deals with our surroundings and our position in it.
We learn what parents, teachers and the people around us expect from us.
Then, when the much-dreaded puberty hits.
For the first time in our lives the questions arise:
“Who am I really?
What do I want?
Irrespectively of what my parents and others expect from me?”
We manage to get off more or less lightly through our teens. Hopefully we have come out with a “functional” adult personality.
This process of growing up however takes place mostly subconsciously. So much so, that many of us never really answer this simple question for ourselves:
“Who am I?”
We orientate ourselves in our social surroundings and go with the tide.
Here in Germany it is very popular for young people, once they finish school, to go studying at some random university.
They go without any real idea what they want to do with their lives.
If we get jobs we just take whatever we “stumble into”, as long as it gets some cash in.
Then we live in the moment, often growing.
Consciously or unconsciously. More and more unhappy.
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This potential soil for depression and other mental illnesses to form
It can even leave a mark on people with a strong psyche.
One possible result: The dreaded midlife-crisis.
That is when we are suddenly get blindsided by a feeling of having missed out in life.
The sole cause of this change in life is never asking and answering the question:
“Who am I really and what do I want in life?”
So, how would I personally answer this question? Who am I?
Spoiler-warning, I have no idea!
The depression in me would say I am nobody. I can tell on thing out of experience though. If you ask yourself this question seriously and are not able to answer it, you might have already a rather big problem.
Our identity, our ego, is everything we are after all.
Our whole self-worth lies inside our identity. If we aren’t able to fill our identity wholeheartedly with something worthwhile, what’s left?
What constitutes us and how much self-worth do we live with?
Depression and schizoid personality disorder paired with an unhealthy dose of mobbing prevented me efficiently from building up any self-worth whatsoever.
Still or rather especially for that reason I want to divide out this for every human being so vital question:
Who am I?
How do we determine, who we actually are?
Well, the most obvious answer would be, our name.
It is the primary identification of our person. However, it doesn’t say much about us. It maybe part of our ethnical origin (if at all) and the taste of our parents. More interesting in that regard would be the names we choose ourselves. Especially in the age of the internet, where virtually everybody has a nickname. In these names we bear a more or less great piece of our personality.
The next thing, that’s not unimportant for who we are, is our age.
After all, it is the second interesting information we share with other people we get to know.
Our age mainly gives away two factors:
In which era have we been born and did we grow up in?
This can be a big indicator about our personal development. Growing up in war or in a period of rebuilding after one have to go through vastly different things in life than those grow up in peace.
Furthermore our age tells other people (very approximately) in which period of life we are currently in.
Someone in his or her mid-thirties is generally in a completely different environment as someone in his or her early twenties.
But this fact can already lead to mental problems. Many societies tend to link the age of a person with certain expectations.
How often are people still expected to be parents in their early thirties at the latest?
How often do people out of the blue ask themselves on their fiftieth birthday,
“Why haven’t I achieved this and that in my life yet? I should be way more up in the job ladder!”
This might be a German thing.
Not for nothing are people angry about employers who only want their employees to be in their early twenties. They field years of job experience, even when they just have finished university.
Speaking of university.
Woe betide those who erred in their field of study and want to start anew!
Those who are in their mid-twenties and aren’t already rooted in job life.
Whoever is that old and still studying must be lazy!
It’s actually astounding how much expectation gets put into a simple number, our date of birth.
Another big part of who we are is of course our gender.
I only want to mention this on the sideline here.
Because of how crucial this topic is and the wide array of problems that come with it (especially discrimination). It is already talked about pretty much everywhere else.
Another part of what distinguishes us big time is our appearance
Sadly we cannot choose things like our face or body proportions (unless we are able and willing to get under the knife for it).
Yet these can have huge influence on our self-worth.
Furthermore does our choice of clothing express a little of our personality?
Do we vest ourselves inconsiderately to not attract unwanted attention?
Do we wear bright colors to accomplish the exact opposite?
Expensive branding to boost our self-worth?
Suits which make us look strong and professional?
Shirts imprinted with the logo of our favorite band to show our support and affiliation to a fan base?
We rarely think about why we like what we like. But what we like to wear is already a part of what defines us. Nobody will introduce himself on the internet saying,
“Hello, my name is Patrick and I am wearer of cargo pants.”
(Yes, I really do find them simply practical).
So what then is the maybe even most crucial information
Nearly every other human being you meet wants to know about you. The above things dictate our self-worth.
But what impacts us more than anything else?
Our job.
Everyone who once was or still is unemployed fears this question,
“What do you do for a living?”
Personally, when I am faced with this question I can feel how my chest tightens, my breath goes away. I feel dizzy like the ground gets pulled away beneath my feet.
It is if like so much rides on this one question, “Who are you? What are you worth? What do you contribute to society?”
And to all these questions I seem to have only one valid answer, “Nothing.”
But why is that so?
Why is our career so all-dominant for our self-worth?
Many people lay the blame on our achievement-oriented societies. Surely that does contribute its part. After all according to society we are only worth what we are able to achieve. We are measured by how much money we’ve got laying in the bank.
However, I’d like to think that this is no modern phenomenon.
On the contrary, many western family names still remember us of the occupational fields of our ancestors. Miller, Smith, Baker, Taylor. All were professions that distinguished people in societies and their positions in them for ages.
In Germany our jobs are even so sacred, that these days we invent new, important sounding (and mostly English) names for them.
We seek to artificially increase the perceived worth of that job. A popular example for this is the name of the “Facility Manager.” This must be much more important than the name ordinary janitor.
The perception gets more difficult when you think about activities that generate little to no income at all.
Once in a while you can read on Twitter and the likes some angry posts from people.
They are irritated saying, “I’m streaming, so I’m a streamer! I’m blogging, so I’m a blogger! What’s so hard about that?”
I would maybe float the stupid counter questions
“On Sunday mornings I’m crisping my bread rolls up myself; am I a baker?”
“I once had a paper boat; am I a captain?:
“I get caught by a speed camera regularly; am I a race driver?”
In the end it only comes down to your own self-image.
This is the first blog I ever wrote and I’m certainly not feeling like a blogger. I have written and released an e-book a while back and I still never have seen me as an author. That’s because the book was basically never read.
I spent two and a half months streaming on a nearly daily basis. Yet, I do not feel like a streamer. That’s, because I have not (yet) been successful.
Who Decides?
This last example brings me to the conclusion of this blog.
This is a tough lesson, I have understood for a long time, but could to this day never internalize or implement.
Who determines at what point I have success with something? How big this success has to be to be “valid”?
Who gets to decide, if I could proudly announce “I am an author and a blogger”?
Can I say, “Well, I did write a book and a few blogs once; not that important”?
Who determines how much of my self-worth depends on my job?
My appearance?
My origin?
In the end only I can.
Only we ourselves can determine our own worth and the worth of what we do in life.
Real self-worth (like the name suggests) should and can never be dependent on the opinions of other people or other outer influences.
The only thing we can do is to listen to our inner voice. We can do what we can muster up at least a little bit of passion and cultivate pride in ourselves.
Pride on, what we still , despite all the odds, are able to do.
Pride on the people we like to be with and pride to be allowed to be a part of their lives.
In the end we are who and what we choose to be.
I think there is nothing more secure than the feeling of having my personal answer to that short but tough question. Also to being contempt with it.
Who am I?
A loving husband and doggy-daddy!
This blog is also available in German, my primary language. English being only my secondary language some things may get lost in translation even though I try my best to avoid that.
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