Who are you?

Now there’s a question!  Well, you might say, ‘I’m me’. But, however, who is that person?
Bowie said, ‘Aging is an extraordinary process where you become the person you should have been’.

I only heard that recently and it really rung some massive bells with me.

We all grow up being the person our parents want us to be, after all we are subject to all that they hold dear and enjoy, whether that’s sports, love of the countryside or stamp collecting.  We are also immersed in their emotional values and stability; the way they react to difficulties and the basic way they live their life.

Often, we rebel against that model of life in our teens, becoming the person our peers think we should be, the people we wish to be in the same gang as.  Often determined by the music we listen to, the sport we watch and play, the fashions we see on social media and the pressures that come with needing to have the latest model of phone, or trainers or whatever and the financial implications that can come with that.

Then we get jobs and there can be huge pressures there, to perform, to climb the ladder etc.
We meet our perfect partner and spend time on our best behaviour to impress them.  Maintaining that can be hard too.

There’s no getting past the fact that having enough money is also a pressure.  Not only do we have buy all this ‘stuff’ we also become very attached to it.  As we grow older the purchases we make get bigger, houses, cars and the like.

On top of all this, we probably pick up some emotional baggage too, relationship break ups and the loss of family and friends.

So, if you look back, you have been the person your parents thought you should be, you have been the person your friends thought you should be, the person your work colleagues thought you should be, the person your spouse thought you should be, and then of course the person your children thought you should be.

Or at least the person you thought these people thought you should be.

Who are you?

If you stripped away all the ‘trappings’, funny how that words means ‘the outward signs, features, or objects associated with a particular situation’ of our modern life, ‘trappings’, would you be happy and at peace.  Would you like the person you saw in the mirror when you brushed your teeth?  Would you be happy with your motivations for your actions? All of them?  Do you have secrets? Are they secrets because you are not proud of them?

How many of your decisions are based on Fear?

Fear of what other people might think of you?  Fear of loosing your car, home or other prized possessions? Fear of loosing your job?  Fear of catching COVID. 

All this without even getting caught up with addictions that many of us have.  How long could you survive with a cigarette or a beer or glass of wine? To name two.

And then there are the doctrines of faith and spirituality, many and varied, many which also offer pressures of conforming and behaving in a certain way!

Do you know how to find peace when it becomes increasingly elusive?

‘Happy is the person who lives independent of the good wishes of other people!’

So remember to love yourself, your flaws and imperfections. The real you, the true you, like the truth, it has to come out in the end.

So be the true you…
Who are you?