How to Be Who You Want to Be

Embrace being an ever evolving force of nature.

An unfixed identity.

As a kid, I was what you would call a “chameleon”. I could fit in pretty much anywhere, but it was just camouflage. The same way that a chameleon is not actually the leaves and branches it appears to be, I was not the person I was portraying myself as.

Early Beginnings

Even from birth, it would seem this was my destiny— I was born in Mexico to a Mexican family going back generations. Soon after, however, I moved to the United States, and I would relocate from city to city throughout my childhood, having lived in seven cities before even getting to middle school. I caught on to the pattern at an early age and knew that a move would be inevitable, so I didn’t bother making real friends— for what? It would be easier to just be agreeable and sit with whatever group I could find.

Even my own national identity was (and still remains) a blur. I’m too Mexican for Americans, and I’m too American for Mexicans. Though I have a stronger affinity for my homeland and my ancestry, it would be inauthentic of me to fully assume that culture. What did I know about Mexico besides the stories my parents told of it? Besides the few weeks out of the year that I would visit? The day-to-day struggles were foreign to me. I spoke a version of Spanish that was defined solely by two people with whom I interacted on a daily basis and not by an entire country surrounding me. My past was a long-forgotten history of people that came before me, my present was a series of turbulent waves, and my future was a distant land of dreams that I wasn’t even sure existed.

Adolescence

In high school, I was pretty settled down, geographically speaking. That being said, I tried to find my clique— as a Latino, I believed that that was the social group where I belonged. I attempted to assimilate myself to the “cool” group, but I knew that it just didn’t feel right, no matter how hard I tried to suppress those feelings.

It was the type of group where if you knew one of them, you knew all of them. They all came from the same background, lived in the same place, had the same interests, and were all headed in the same direction. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but when I hung around them, I saw myself having that future, and nothing was more frightening. Having a kid straight out of high school, go into manual labor, be tied down with a family? This was literally the opposite of everything I wanted for myself. I wanted to graduate early, use my mind, travel the world, experience life on my own, and have no strings attached to anywhere or any people. Had I stayed with them, I would have had a life of predictability and comfort, but I didn’t want that. I wanted to discover my own path and forge my own destiny based on what I wanted, not what was convenient or easy to fall into.

I came to my senses, thankfully, and started to mind my own business. “Better to be alone than to be in bad company”, they say. I left to college during my junior and senior year of high school and even graduated early. No one in college was interested in being around a high schooler, and I saw it as a place where I showed up, did my assignments, and left. I got a couple of jobs where I was the youngest one there, so hanging out with coworkers also wasn’t an option. I just played the role of whoever I was supposed to be in that setting.

I knew not who I was, so I was everyone. And in being everyone, I was no one.

The Start of Discovering Myself

Throughout my adolescence, there would be glimpses of insight where the thought “this is it” came to me. The first instance that I can recall of this happening was when I traveled to Rome when I was 12. The history, architecture, art, culture, walkability, slow living, and just the entire character of the city immediately struck a chord with me. From that age, I knew Europe was meant for me. I had found my home.

The second time was when I would read. There is something so magical about reading the words on a page or screen and absorbing the ideas of the writer. In my opinion, the transmission of knowledge is the most sacred thing there is. Like many children, fiction was the gateway for my imagination to run wild; I spent hours fantasizing which House I would be sorted into, which Greek god or goddess I would be the son of, or imagining my life in a dozens of post-apocalyptic worlds.

As I got older, I started to become interested in the more abstract. Suddenly, writing wasn’t just a tool for people to express their imagination, but also to express their deepest held values and ideas. All the conversations I wished I could have had with others, I could now have with long-gone authors.

What is life?

How should it be lived?

What truly matters?

These questions (and many more) could be explored, pondered, and refuted. I was free to come up with my own answers instead of being graded on right or wrong like I was in school. Topics that were too taboo to discuss were now available to me, and the thirst that I didn’t even know I had was beginning to become quenched. Like the occult societies of the past, I felt like I was now a novice initiate beginning to uncover the real wisdom of life.

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All of this brings me to the central theme of this essay: identity.

The philosopher John Locke asserted that everyone is born with a tabula rasa, or blank slate. At birth, there is infinite potential for us to be anything and anyone. As we grow up, however, labels become etched onto the slate. At first, it’s “I am a boy or girl.” Then, “I am part of the Smith family”. Followed by, “I am a proud American.” Add things like alumnus status, job title, sports team, religious affiliation, and you’ve got a whole conglomeration of labels that are borderline permanent, just like stone carvings that Locke wrote about.

But what is identity, really, besides arbitrarily imposed ideals upon ourselves?

It is so easy to say who you are not; I am not a woman, I am not Japanese, I am not an Olympic athlete, I am not a Martian, the list goes on.

But what about affirming who you are? That, I argue, is much more difficult. If you take away all the superficial labels that could be used to classify you, what’s left?

French philosopher Paul Ricoeur wrote that selfhood is essentially linked to a personal discourse that says “I believe in”. So instead of being comprised of unchangeable principles, identity should be looked at as beliefs that are fluid and dynamic.

Jean-Paul Sartre, another French contemporary of Ricoeur, also spoke heavily about identity. He wrote that we are the product of our choices and narratives, meaning that we are endlessly shaping ourselves and are a constant work in progress; not in the sense that there is an ultimate end for us to reach, but a project that will never end, like a canvas that is always being painted with new brushstrokes.

Another core idea of Sartre’s is the idea of mauvaise foi, or bad faith. We act in bad faith when we act inauthentically or box ourselves into a single, unchanging role. For example, conforming to a social group that we know doesn't fully meet our values (like I did in high school), or leading someone on romantically when we know that we don’t envision a future with them. In these cases, our identity is not something that we craft for ourselves, but rather something that is crafted for us. And is that any way to live?

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In writing this essay, I’ve grown to despise that word: identity. When I think of it, I get the visceral feeling of shoes that are too tight. Or being in a bar that’s absolutely packed. Or standing in a crowd with nowhere to go. Identity elicits a mental claustrophobia, and I can think of no worse prison than being condemned to be a certain person forever. To be unchanging is to lose all humanity.

So the question is: how do we become the person we want to be?

A good starting point would be to write out a list of the values most important to you or use an online test (I use the VIA Strengths Assessment for its reputability in the positive psychology domain). Here are mine:

With these traits in mind, you are able to glean greater clarity as to the people, places, and activities that resonate most with you. For me, my areas of greatest intrigue are museums, libraries and bookstores, and historic buildings. Chances are that going to these places, I’ll find others who share those same interests and could be nice friends to make. As they say, your vibe attracts your tribe.

There is also another fascinating psychological phenomenon that dictates who you are, and you might have been engaging in it without even knowing it: introjection. Introjection is to emulate the qualities of others, and psychology has historically focused on the negative repercussions of it (self-esteem, shame, guilt, confidence, so on). But I’m trained in positive psychology, and fortunately, it can also be used to “inherit” the beneficial qualities of others.

I want you to think of someone who you admire. It can be anyone: a family member, friend, celebrity, author, artist, historical figure, literally anyone. They can even be dead or alive.

Then ask yourself what you admire about them. Is it their sense of justice? Their creativity? Their compassion? Their unwavering resilience?

Once you’ve pinpointed those qualities, it’s just a matter of simply doing them. Don’t overthink it, just do it. One of my beloved mentors is Marcus Aurelius, the famous Stoic. He was a kind, practical, and no-nonsense person. When I find myself unwilling to rise in the morning, I think of his quote from Meditations 5.1, which says,

“At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: “I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm?”

Or when dealing with difficult people (Meditations, 2.1):

When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own - not of the same blood or birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine.

In essence, asking myself, “what would Marcus do?” And I repeat that for the other idols in my life. I look up to Ram Dass for matters related to love and compassion; Earthling Ed during situations of patience; my father when I must embody responsibility; hell, I even look up to Naruto’s (yes, from the anime) astounding mental fortitude— the list goes on.

If you’re worried about losing yourself in this process, don’t be. You’ll find that after a while of intentionally channeling your role models, their actions become your actions, and eventually a natural behavior for you, as automatic as blinking. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong at all with looking to others to create ourselves. We are still just as unique as the experiences and people that shape us.

Which brings me to my closing thought: You are an endlessly shifting force of nature. There is not a single You, but rather a million of them. A new You is created when you hear a new song that you like, or when you’re moved by a movie, or when you belly laugh with your friends, or when you travel to a new place, or when you finish that scarf you’ve been knitting, or when you leave that relationship, or when you get into a new relationship, or when you become a father, mother, aunt, or uncle. We must cease viewing ourselves through a fixed lens and instead embrace the constant shifting of our being, never being afraid to alter it.

I leave you with this quote by Heraclitus, which is one that has been tattooed on my very soul:

"A man cannot step into the same river twice, because it is not the same river, and he is not the same man.”

Here’s an exercise for you to try: without stating your name, familial title, accolades, profession, or anything related to “status”, describe yourself. Here’s mine:

I am an explorer by heart. My passion is exploring the nuances of this human experience and immersing myself in all that life has to offer. Wandering to the far reaches of the globe and finding myself in faraway lands with unique people ignites my soul and reaffirms my knowledge that, at our core, we are all the same. I am a constantly evolving body of ideas, experiences, and emotions— I take it all as it comes because whatever I feel, I am. And when it departs, I am not. As a being dominated by wonder and creativity, I find myself in that which I create. Or maybe everything I have ever come into contact with has created me. To this end, identity is not something that can be found to have an absolute origination; rather, it is something that we define for ourselves, if only we would give ourselves the permission to fully be anything and everything.

Thank you for reading,

Alan

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