The theme song to the tv show CSI asks the question, “Who are you?” The simplest answer is, “It all depends!” Even though we might generally have a constant and consistent sense of “me,” it’s not at all uncommon to hear other people remark that “I didn’t know you were like that!” Sometimes people who are very close to us will be surprised at something we do and comment that they didn’t expect us to behave in such a way.
And from our own point of view, sometimes life can be surprising. Statements like “I didn’t know I had it in me” and “I never thought I’d be able to pull that off” suggest that we have expectations about ourselves that can, from time to time, be contradicted or exceeded. In a less dramatic fashion, people have told me about certain habits or tendencies they’ve tried to overcome but, frustratingly, they find themselves lighting up that forbidden cigarette or skipping out on their scheduled gym class and wondering “Why do I keep doing this to myself?”
It’s almost as though, despite the stable and constant idea of a singular “me” we have most of the time, there’s actually a dad (or mum) “me” and a friend “me” and a sister (or brother) “me” and a club member “me” and a School Board member “me” and a customer “me” and a nightclubber “me” and a CEO “me” and a son (or daughter) “me”. Not everyone has all of these mes at the same time and not all of them are completely distinct from each other. Some people will have different mes and some of the mes you had as an adolescent can disappear when you become an adult.
Our different mes seem to correspond most closely to different roles we have as we go about the business of living our daily lives. We wake up beside our partner, chat to our kids over breakfast, smile at the boss as she walks past the desk, joke around with friends over lunch, and grind it out with our training partner at the gym.
So what makes different roles different? Why is being a friend different to being a parent or a coach? The answer might seem more obvious if we switch from thinking of roles to thinking of goals. Each of the roles we have has different goals associated with it.
Different roles don’t have completely different goals all of the time but it seems reasonable to suggest that the goal states I’m creating as a parent will be different from the goal states I’m creating as Regional Sales Manager. Similarly, the goal states I’m creating as the host of a Sunday lunch time barbecue with friends will be different from the goal states I’m creating as the point guard on my club’s basketball team.
Angst, stress, and inner torment can arise when the goals of different mes are incompatible or even oppositional. When I stay back at work to create the goal state of meeting deadlines and that means I arrive home after my kids have gone to bed and I don’t get to help them finish building their lego structure or read them a story, then my goal state of building strong parent-child relationships will start to crumble. As I work to rebuild that goal state by promising to make it to the school athletics carnival, my goal state of being promoted begins to dissolve.
Human botherations of any degree of severity come mostly from the pursuit of at least two goals that each insist on extinguishing the other to guarantee their own existence.
Fortunately, we are designed in such a way that behind a set of warring goal states is a place or a point of view where there is common ground. In an intricately woven web of living, any particular goal state is used to help build up the picture of a more important, more highly valued goal state. Much like the pieces in a jigsaw puzzle, the mes really do all fit together if you can find the perspective from which a picture of solidarity comes into view.
Trying to make a piece from the middle of the jigsaw fit into a corner won’t work and neither will it work to coerce some mes into toeing the line of other mes. If you can step back and see the bigger picture though, a bit like checking the image on the lid of the jigsaw puzzle box, you’ll get a sense of how all the mes can work together harmoniously. The more you can stay in that space, the stronger will be your sense of the things that are important and the clearer will be the path you want to forge.
So the answer to the question “Who are you?” really is “It all depends”. It partly depends on what’s going on around you but, mostly, it depends on your perspective. The answer that seems right at any particular time will be the one that fits your current point of view. Finding your core or your essence to which all of your mes are in service and answering the question from that place will help you discover the secrets of your own contentment and fulfillment.
