WHO ARE YOU?

Who are you?

Whenever someone asks me that,

I'm still tempted to hand them a business card,
Or tell him what I do for a living,

Or tell him about my kids and family

Or what it's like to be a husband, writer, musician, actor......

We think of ourselves in terms of the roles we play

As we meet and interact with the world we've created for ourselves.

But are we not much more than that?

Who are we?

Whenever we meet one another for the first time,

Or someone we know after a major crisis....

There is always an un-asked question –

Who are you?

And we start sorting through our files

Of things about this person that we recognise

From past experience.

The process is automatic;

We don't think about it much,

It just happens.

The truth is

That what we see in another person

Also exists in us.

If it didn't exist in us, we could not recognise it.

You see, there is so much more about ourselves

Than we often realise.

And other people often awaken us to the bits of us

That we may have forgotten about.

Some bits of ourselves – we like:

Other bits, we don't like so much.

Whatever we think we are,

There is a lot more to like about our selves

Than we realise.

But we don't look very often, do we?

We have an internal critic who's always very quick to point out our faults:

It's a habit we've got into.

And we counter that

By looking for others to do the job of liking us instead.

I think that's a bit unfair.

If I walked up to you and said –

“Hello. Look, I don't like ME at all,

But I expect you to at least pretend to like me,

So that I can feel better about myself.

And if you don't do that,

I will DISlike you until the cows come home.”

If I did that, you would do well

To walk away from me as fast as you can.

But aren't we actually doing a lot of that?

We just don't declare or admit that's what we're doing.

We can't get rid of what we think about ourself

And I have found

It is futile to try......

But we can expand our self-knowing,

And find more about ourselves to be comfortable with.

Then, maybe, we can start getting some balance into the picture,
And maybe even get a bit more comfortable

With bits of ourself that we're not so happy with.

Once the sport of kings, bishops and social satirists,
Disapproval has become something of a pandemic obsession --
We're all at it,
Practising it on anything and everything within sight.
And we've become better at it than noticing something to approve of.
Most people I ask "How are you?" 
Answer "Not bad," with a hint of surprise and relief!
How sad.

I have found

That I've never been very successful at changing anything

By disliking it..

In fact, things and people I dislike,

Seem to keep on coming back

Just to get up my nose.

The same is true of things we dislike about our self.

There is always something about what we dislike

That is worthwhile....

Always.

And it's up to each of us to find it.

Because .....
There is one inescapable truth

About what we think we are,

And it is this ----

Wherever we go.....

We always take Whover we are,

And Whatever we are

With us.

We don't have any choice about that.

Whether we go to the hairdressers

Or to Bali

We always take our Self with us.

All of it,

Lock, stock and barrel.

Paradoxically, the smaller our vision of ourself,

The heavier the baggage:

The larger our vision of What We Are,

The lighter we become
Because what we are is not exclusive;
It is something shared. 
We have a lot in common,
You and I,
Just seen from slightly different perspectives.

Whether our baggage is light or heavy

Is up to us.

[Listen to "You Always Take the Weather With You" – Crowded House]