- Am I what I do?
- Am I what I achieve?
- Am I my beliefs?
- Am I my values?
- Am I my character which these values and believes have forged over the years?
- Am I who my family thinks I am? Who value me for their own reasons?
- Am I who my workplace thinks I am?
- Am I my education?
- Am I my skills?
- Am I my talent? my potential?
- Am I what my friends think I am?
- Am I what I think I am?
- Am I what the society thinks I am?
- Am I what I have? What I own?
Who am I?
For the last 2 years, I’ve been like a ship without anchor, tossed between crushing waves of despair desperately hanging on to, hoping for something to hold on to, something that would be the constant in the ever-changing ocean of life.
I once understood, I would be valued for what I contribute to others. From this realization came the thought of pleasing others so that they can see me as valuable. From this came the fear that I would be ‘valuable’, of ‘worthy’ only as long as I’m of service to others. Over the years, I’ve tried to be of ‘use’ to all those I valued so that they would see me also of value. I tried to the family member helping everyone, I tried to be the ‘dependable’ colleague & performer that my workspace would value. I tried to keep up the pretenses I felt are least controversial, to be accepted by all, that I felt would give me the ‘standing’ I was looking for. Sometimes, some other side of me, my conscience perhaps, would speak out, but, I silenced it with the utmost logic – ‘I got to be useful to someone or the other, or why would anyone think I’m valuable?’
Value of my self was only the value others gave me. When people didn’t agree with me, as they are bound to from time to time, they discarded me. They suddenly saw me as ‘useless’. So, did I. I saw myself ‘useless’. Blamed myself for not being able to see the change and failing to do something that would extend their belief in me. I blamed them for not seeing what an effort I was making to be ‘useful’ to them. I felt unappreciated for the effort I was putting-in & felt like a ‘failure’ for not anticipating changes in others.
When I see what I thought I cultivated for myself crumbling, I lost confidence and with it hope. Because I was only this – what I had cultivated for myself. That gave me identity. Now, that was crumbling, with it, my sense of who I was.
So, who was I now?
A month back or so, I felt very lost. It was a culmination of all the hopelessness I’ve been feeling for quite sometime. I felt I was not winning any fights I was in, convincing anyone I was supposed to, impressing anyone I was meant to, I felt I was not doing anything I was supposed to ‘do’. Since I failed ‘doing’ what was expected of me, I’m clearly not who others think I am, so I was just only a fraud faking everything. Then who was I? If I’m not who I thought I was, if I was not what others thought I was, who was I? Why didn’t I cease to exist when others lost belief in me, when I lost belief in myself, when I didn’t know who I was? Why didn’t I cease to exist? Because I was more than my achievements? more than my work? more than my talent? more than my what others thought I was? more than what I thought I was? Because I existed even before my colleagues knew about my work? because I existed even before my family saw me ‘useful’? because I existed even before I made any friends?
So, who was I?
I am everything, and I am not any of ‘it’ individually, and I can also ‘exist’ when all that is stripped away from me. I will be no less.
So, who am I?
I simply ‘Am’. I exist.
I existed before everything,
I existed during everything,
I will exist after everything.
I won’t perish for lack of validation. For I simply am.
Soham.
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