IDENTITY CRISIS?

As far as I know....
The urge to BE somebody is pretty much universal,
At least around mating season.

The desire for Self-hood is not bad in itself,
But it starts to clag up
When we identify with our identity,
i.e. we begin to think that our identity is who we truly are.
That's as silly as thinking we ARE our business card, or our resumë, or the car we drive, or the school we went to, or the job we have, or the suburb we live in, or the school we send our children to, or the partner we have............
Or anything else we hold up as proof to our inner critic that we're worth the space we occupy.

Just as tragically silly as identifying with who we think we are,
Is seeking an identity in conformity to external standards,
In the approbation of someone else,
Or in the number, variety, and novelty of aforementioned material things we can accumulate.

Identity consists of two elements:-
Self Esteem ( a general, deep-down, inside-the-skin feeling of worthiness, or otherwise); and
Self Image ( a very specific, internally created picture of every talent, drawback, characteristic and performance we have, along with associated comments and feelings about each one).

Our Identity was almost totally instigated by those we opened up to in our early childhood,
And by our seriously incomplete image of those we've been impressed with ever since starting kindergarten.
In other words, our Identity was a ramshackle slum of adopted impressions,
Slapped together in a hasty endeavour to get liked.
And 80% of the people you meet are still stick in that infantile slum;
They have done bugger-all since
To create something for themselves --
Something that works better for them.

Some form of Identity is essential.
A particular Identity is useful as long as it draws us continually toward evolving;
It ceases to be useful when it is hopelessly anachronistic,
Or becomes deludedly unrealistic,
Or starts to cramp our current possibilities.

Being human is a condition of Limitedness. That doesn't stop until we die.
So if we want to keep growing,
We do have to deliberately keep stretching limits.
But life allows us the other alternative --
A repetitive treadmill of same-old-same-as,
Upright and dead, all the way to the grave.
If that's your choice,
You won't be alone.....

If it seems a little unfair that we have to persist with growing,
Console yourself with the realisation
That your life and mine are never short on opportunities for us to extend our tolerances.

Happiness and self worth arise naturally from setting internal standards for ourself,
Requiring ourself to live according to our internal guidance system (we each have one, you know),
Sharing around our values and what we do to real-ise them,
And stretching ourselves ever further into infinite possibility.