Identity - A Personal Account
Throughout my childhood, our family was prone to moving every few years (itchy feet, I suppose) and a large part of my identity began to form around the kind of sweeping change that affects the entirety of a kid's world. What changed vs. what remained.
I've lived in Oregon, Montana, South Carolina and Texas and in your own country, you might admit that each area can be quite culturally unique. Identity is what makes you different from another. Your identity is not a collection of documents governments keep or your physical body but a shadow that is cast in front of you. If it's big enough, the tone to situations change with your presence. When we hear that so-and-so is on their way, the expectation can be felt, whether it be fun or menacing.
I did my best to appease to the 'natives' after moving to another part of the country but found that I was going to be the northerner, westerner or southerner no matter what I did. What became a long string of failed attempts to mimic the local majority caused me to find a special group of people that made me reconsider my approach and embrace those things that were uniquely me. Each region in America likes to hate on the other and as I maneuvered around the social 'sidelines', I began to come across a minority of people who were too busy practicing and refining something to worry about fitting in. They were the artists, athletes, writers, musicians, mathletes, journalists, etc. and had a stronger sense of individual identity than most adults I knew at the time.
At 15, they seemed to be ready to take their talents out into the world. I didn't know how, but I knew that was what I wanted. What I think I learned was that we all have a greater identity within us, we just need to lower the volume of our friends and give it a chance to speak.
Dreams don't give up on us, we give up on them. Your identity doesn't fail you, you tell it to be quite too often.
In your 'sphere', there are things that you are better at than your friends, even the best of them. Unfortunately, when we spend time with our closest allies, we are prone to settling with the lowest common denominator as a form of entertainment. Television, shopping, sports and gossip band us together instead of highlighting our differences and we're okay with that because we'd rather fit in than stand out.
But...
It's too important to your well being to avoid playing off of your differences. If you are not annoying your friends by your passion to achieve something, you're not working hard enough. You can bank on that.
So start small, go out to Amazon.com and buy a small paperback on a subject you're interested in learning. Keep it on you. Read about guitars, ants, rock-climbing, whatever, but talk about it with other people. Give your identity a voice and a form and it will encourage your ego to follow.
