Who are you, really?
—
If you’ve been on Facebook lately, you’ve seen (and maybe taken) all these quizzes from Zimbio and Buzzfeed telling you what character you are, what food you are, what type of bacteria are…
It’s silly fun, but it’s also has a dangerous element to it. It’s looking for something external to define us or tell us where we fit in the world.
When we are born, we are named. We grow, we find our roles in our families, our schools, our jobs, our communities, our relationships. One of the hardest tasks in all of that is to keep that golden authentic center of ourselves from being buried by the myriad labels and roles that life assigns.
Who are you, really?
What do you dream of doing that you’ve never told anyone?
Who do you think about as you’re falling asleep?
There are no Facebook categories or Buzzfeed quizzes that can sum up the magnificent patchwork quilt of what it means to be you.
|
What song makes you light up and want to dance?
What are the ideas that you drift to when you’re in the midst of work?
What’s your earliest memory?
What’s your deepest fear?
What are you afraid to want?
There are no Facebook categories or Buzzfeed quizzes that can sum up the magnificent patchwork quilt of what it means to be you.
I wrote a bio for my elephant journal profile a few years ago on a whim, and it’s gotten nearly as many comments as my writing. I got tired of reading and editing so many self-promotional bios that seemed to blur together, that I took a few family inside jokes, some truths and some silliness and made this:
Kate Bartolotta is the strongest girl in the world. She is the love child of a pirate and a roller derby queen. She hails from the second star to the right. She doesn’t know how to behave with all the apples and ibexes. She doesn’t suffer from her eight million freckles, she loves them! Like a rolling stone, Kate gathers no moss. Kate loves kale, being barefoot, Dr. Seuss, singing too loudly, gallivanting, palindromes, blackberries and has far too many books for her own good. When she’s not writing, you can find her practicing yoga, running in the woods, playing with her kids, devouring a book, planting dandelions, changing the world and doing her dishes. Kate does not play the accordion. She is a massage therapist, writer and a compassionate friend to all. This year Kate aspires to finally give up on learning to knit and will instead spend that time putting a little bit more of her heart on the page.
There are a thousand other things I could have said, but it’s a snapshot. It’s a quick silly peek at who I know I am. We are here such a short time, and the battle to stay authentic and vulnerable is fierce.
We grow up, and cynicism and boredom are praised over passion and enthusiasm. We go to parties and people ask each other what they do, so they can figure out which box you fit in, and whether they want to continue the conversation. We complain about the weather and regurgitate political rhetoric instead of talking about things that make our hearts swell and really listening to each other.
♦◊♦
So skip the quizzes. Get quiet and notice what’s making you light up lately. Don’t wait for Buzzfeed to tell you which epic hero you are—go be the hero of your own story. Spend time with people who make you feel most like yourself. Be excited to be you—and don’t waste another minute letting someone else define what that means.
“To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting.”
~ e. e. cummings
—
Photo: Jennie Park/Flickr
Like what you just read? You can find more posts like this in Good Men Project’s Good for the Soul section!
This article originally appeared on the Be You Media Group site, and is being reprinted with permission from the author.