Who Are We? Navigating the Complexity of Being
At times I feel like I am nothing. Five minutes later, I feel I am everything.
We love three-step formulas. Exercise, have a smoothie, be happy! Let's face it, would you read an article titled “Live your dream life by doing these fifty activities every single day”?
We might have a taste for oversimplifying things, but if there’s one thing we are not, is simple.
The journey towards living happier, better lives always returns to the same starting point: identifying what is blocking us from expanding. Chances are what is holding us back is nothing but our mental models and beliefs of who we think we are.
Who Do We Think We Are?
The story goes that, at some point in our lives, we decide we are a few things. I am nice and easy going. A good friend, a loving daughter, a great online marketer who loves standup comedies and quesadillas and hates pineapples.
And that’s it until we do something deemed "bad"… our friend points out how we never hear what he says, we are always talking about ourselves, and we never offer to pick up the tab. We say we are sorry, we say that’s not really us. We give some reason for our behaviour because you know, whatever we did, it had a good reason.
We go on with our lives instead of taking some time to reflect on what these incidents have to tell us about who we are. I mean, we had already decided who we are, hadn’t we?
Humans, After All
In the market economy, it is not enough to consume brands; we become them.
Personal brand courses are offered everywhere. We carefully choose what version of ourselves we display online. Brands are this consistent thing, always communicating the same values, sending out clear messages.
At times, we want to be like machines: efficient, rational, linear. But if we dare to put our fingers in the socket, we will see, we are humans; neither consistent nor binary. We are black, white, and all shades of grey in between. And that’s wonderful: who would have thought in 1749 that we would be able to buy clothes through a screen while we waited for the bus and have them delivered home within 2 business days?
Not even we understand our human potential. It is truly limitless.
Yet we let our self-image dictate our lives: how we spend our free time, what films we watch, what we eat. Most critical is the ability of our self-image to tell us what we would never be caught doing. Merely shopping at Forever 21 can disorient us about who we are. How on earth can we get unsettled by where we shop?
Here’s a Little Story
Marie almost drowned as a child. She could grow up scared the hell out of swimming again. But she could also become a professional swimmer longing to beat that mean water devil.
The same event, two stories. What’s it going to be?
The stories we tell ourselves impact what we allow ourselves to be, what we see as possible. But at the end of the day, they are nothing but stories, and we can tell ourselves anything we want.
Self-image is just a story, not much different from a Disney movie. We define who we are with a few words and cheat ourselves, simplifying existence.
Sometimes we have a crisis, we want to change, we don’t want what we are anymore. We are no longer happy as online marketers… but then what are we? We get so confused. These are precious moments, glimpses of reality showing we were caught in our lies.
We were never just what we said we were. We don’t know what we are, because you know what? We are everything. Can we handle that kind of expansion of being?
“Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. And between the two my life flows” — Nisargadatta Maharaj
Stories, like the market economy, are not part of the natural world. They are our creations and those who have the power to create also have the power to destroy and create anew.
But Then, What Are We?
This is not a question for anyone to answer you and become a dogma, as much as a question to drive you to find out for yourself in your own spiritual growth journey. This way, it can be fully embodied, and you then can just be yourself (instead of being something "you were told"). We are everything, we are nothing, all at once. The truth is, most of the time I don’t think knowing who I am matters so much.
But knowing that I am not what I think I am matters deeply. What matters is knowing that when we say we can’t do this or that, that we are this or that, what we are doing is putting ourselves in a box with clear boundaries.
Acknowledging that we don’t know who we are allows us to gorge on the possibilities of being. It opens the door to the most important question: “What do I want, from the bottom of my heart?” It removes the boundaries to go after our dreams.
Since who we think we are matters deeply, deconstructing our preconceived ideas increases our potential to dream, to change, to choose wisely, to grow, to do and be better. We have power over what we tell ourselves, we don’t need to be victims of our own stories.
For years, I was unhappy as a product manager but had no idea of what direction to take. The story went that I needed income, safety, and structure. I worked full time, exercised, had a rich social and cultural life. Until one day the narrative exploded and I left everything. My job, my country, my relationship.
It's been a deep dive in the emptiness of being, the place where everything can take form and shape. Feeling constantly like nothing and everything, and learning to merge with both at the same time. Spirituality, which had always been big yet a side role in my life, finally took all its space.
We accept to be our stories, but what we really are is the infinite possibilities of stories we could tell ourselves.
Hi, I am Aline Ra M, I am a spiritual guide and energy worker.