The Story of Who I Am; what’s your story?

The moment I started to ask the hard questions it is as if I was playing with a set of Matryoshka doll.  I suppose there are some questions that aren’t meant to be asked unless you are willing to go all the way. It all starts innocently enough.

“Who am I?”

The answers come pouring in; I am a male of a certain age, a certain height, with certain preferences gone through these experiences and a whole list of anecdotes. None of these really answer the question of who I am. They are just a story that I identify with and it’s a nice story for the most part.

The real essence of who I really am is a most elusive question. The more I ask the more I find out what I am not. I identify less and less with this nicely crafted story that was once unshakable. I can change my thoughts, views about the world, preferences and experiences if I like, or life can do it for me. This leads me to believe that this elaborate story has no legs to stand on as it were.

I’ve hit a dead end.

The only thing I can say I know with a fair amount of certainty is I am not the story. There is a lot more to me than any number of words, thoughts and experiences I could weave together.

We use our life experiences, biases, culture and all these abstract concepts to form an identity. There is nothing wrong with having an identity except this it isn’t always self serving. In fact, a lot of time it is self defeating and that’s when you get into all kinds of shenanigans trying to improve or change yourself. The more I  think about it, the more I feel that there is nothing really fundamentally wrong with me that I need to change. Sure I could make better choices, put in more effort, wake up earlier and so on but that’s just editing the story. It’s not quite change in the same way as literally getting a new head.

An existential crisis is difficult business with more questions than answers. I can grasp, at least intellectually, that there is more to me than a biography or description. I feel like my puzzle box of life came with a few pieces missing and without them the puzzle doesn’t quite add up.

I suppose I miss the days when I had firm ground to stand on. I wasn’t always happy with who I thought I was but at least I knew myself (or what I thought was me).  Right now it feels like my identity slowly eroding and the weird thing is I really don’t care.

I guess the bottom line is any idea I have of myself is a story. Until I get the missing part and I can say “This is who I am”, I have the freedom to play around with my story. I can write it as I like, delete what doesn’t serve me and for the most part make sure that it is a story I am happy with.

How Useful Is Your Mind Really?

It is difficult to downplay the usefulness of the mind even from an evolutionary perspective. The mind has allowed us to get this far in life as the human race and has helped to create everything that is part of the civilized world.

We have come so far though that I can’t help but think the mind isn’t as useful as it once was. It was probably very useful for navigating the wilderness so you don’t get picked up by a giant eagle like beloved Cousin Jimmy but not so much today when your odds of staying alive for the next hour are pretty good.

The problem is my mind is always ‘ON’

There is incessant mind chatter even while doing the most menial tasks that requires no brainpower whatsoever;

Like washing my hands

This leads me to believe that I am not getting a good return on my investment. The mind is a problem solving tool no doubt but considering how often mine works, I should have figured out a way to build a holiday home on the sun.

When it comes down to it, the mind if untamed gets in the way of everything. It creates scenarios that have no bearing on what is currently happening, solves these scenarios only to build new ones and on and on it goes. It seems that there is no reprieve from thoughts, images, and words which to be honest are mostly useless.

I guess I’d prefer it if the mind was like my kidneys, or a lung. You know it’s there and working properly (it will be pretty obvious if it is not) but it doesn’t really get in the way of anything. You go about your day not once hearing a peep out of your liver. I think I’d be much happier if the mind was the same way, only working to control the vital operations of the body but otherwise quiet until it is called upon.

I’m trying with some considerable success to quiet the mind and use it only for the intended purpose and then shelve it until the next time I need it. It is not always easy. Like a naughty child, the mind is always up to some mischief if you take your eyes off it for a single moment. In an ideal world, my mind would be as still as a bucket of water. I would say to it;

“Ok, now we need to plan for the day. We shall do X, Y and Z. Now go back and I’ll call you when I need you.”

A lot of stuff that goes on in the mind is basically useless for day-to-day operations. Once you have set up the plan and the action steps you need to take, there really isn’t much thinking needed. Yet it is only on very few occasions you might find your mind quiet as you get on with your task. In this case, you would be in a constant state of Flow; when you are so engrossed in the task at hand that you lose all sense of where you are, what time it is or what is happening around you.

Shenanigans of the mind aside, it isn’t all bad. The mind offers on-demand entertainment anytime anywhere. You can create the most dramatic, beautiful, adventurous story you like and you are the hero. You could be the villain it is your story after all but the point is that escape from reality or boredom is only a thought away. Rather than use your downtime coming up with scenarios where everything falls apart or you are met with some misfortune or another, that time would be better spent dreaming up all the ways things could actually go right.

Its delusion, sure, but you don’t know the future. Anything could happen, good or bad, so if it’s 50-50 why not prefer the good?

I’m trying to reduce the number of active mind hours. It’s a refreshing break and I’ve gotten a lot better with practice. It seems a lot like the endless chatter is solving some kind of problem or preempting a course of action against some impending disaster. Experience tells a whole other story; hardly any of the worst-case-scenarios I have ever dreamed up have actually happened.

I have realized that the mind is indeed very useful; but only for some things.

Change Your Life… Along With Yourself

Making changes in your life is commendable. I think deciding to discard the old ways and creating a brand new life is the best expression of free will. We all choose the life we live whether we like to admit it or not and like Earl Nightingale said;

“We are all self-made, but only the successful will admit it.”

Personal development is exciting and deeply rewarding. You begin to see yourself doing things that you never thought you were capable of doing. You were never a morning person but the sun no longer catches you in bed. You used to procrastinate but now you are aggressive about taking action.

You are Ali in his prime.

It’s all exciting until you hit a brick wall. Why?

It’s because you haven’t made the mental transition from the old life to the new one. You are using the old map to navigate a Brave New World. You are Columbus using the map of the Republic of Genoa to discover a route to India.

New Routes, New Map

Life is a bunch of small and big happenings that form our reference points for every new event. Truth be told, nothing completely new ever happens. We simply draw from past, related events to make sense of what is currently happening. This process is so subtle that you don’t even realize that it is going on.

There is a tendency to draw from past experiences which didn’t serve you in the first place to taint and defile new experiences.

You may think more money is the answer to your current problems. So you work hard and get that promotion, or get that business running. As soon as the money starts pouring in, you are just as unsatisfied and restless as you were in the beginning of the journey. You problems haven’t really changed.

At first you were worried about not having enough money but now you are worried about losing it. The point is you are still worried about money.

Rather than enjoy the new milestone which was once just a dream, you are just unsatisfied as you were in the beginning.

This problem permeates every new area of your life. Every new job, relationship, experience, everything will be just as empty as the old life you left behind.

Personal development is all about changing your world but it should begin from the inside out. If you work hard to meet your career goals, but deep inside you are still identify yourself as an underachiever, you begin to feel like this new found success is only temporary. Many successful people feel like frauds.

It’s been called the imposter syndrome.

There are few things in life more tragic than reaching your goals after much fighting and clawing only to feel dissatisfied. What was once an ideal has now become a burden and it’s easy to lose motivation to continue improving yourself. Either that or you live in perpetual fear that what you have achieved so far is only temporary or feel like you don’t truly deserve all the new and great things that are happening in your life.

Change the Man Along With the Life

I suggest you begin to take each day as new. The experiences of each day of your journey should map the reference points for the future. That day that you didn’t procrastinate should prove to you that you are the type of person who makes things happen.

It’s exciting to see yourself doing things that you never thought you could do so don’t let it go to waste. Use these experiences as your new skin into which you pour your new wine.

And as for the old skin, discard it along with the old wine.

Changing your life must go hand in hand with changing yourself. That means discarding all the old road maps that no longer matter or speak to who you are and new journey. Appreciate every single day that you make progress and learn from the days you didn’t.

Changing your life literally means morphing into a brand new person until the old person becomes a figment of your imagination; a bad dream that you awoke from a long time ago.