Tuesday, July 26, 2011

Joy in Identification

Who Are You? I love to play that song and wonder: Who am I today?

Who are you? Do you identify yourself with your career, with your family, your religion, friends, hobby? Race? Gender? Sexual orientation? Age group, social class, or political party? Your car? Or a famous person who you strive to be like? Maybe you define yourself by all the baggage of circumstance you carry around with you. Now I’ve done that, and those bags weigh a lot! Got too heavy to carry, actually—had to dump them. Some people identify themselves with a goal, and that’s good to a point. I did hear a true story once, about someone who suicided when said goal did not perform as planned. Expectations can kill you.

Have you examined your Identifications lately? Amazingly, they can change without telling us. Even then…how healthy are they? Is our current definition of self really benefiting us? Or handicapping?

Be honest with yourself. Find out!

2 comments:

  1. How we identify ourselves is a very interesting question. How much we identify with someone/something may be the fine line between motivation and obsession. Defining self is the stuff that therapy is made of. :)

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  2. Ah! Obsession can be useful, if used wisely :)

    Your comment gets me to thinking of another thing I left off my list: Many people define themselves by a diagnosis. Diabetics, for example. One example of where obsession can be damaging.

    I am truly amazed at handicapped people who find a way around their obstacle. If they can, why can't we?

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