Inner Art
Stuck on Our Labels: How We Limit Our Identities
by Elizabeth H. Florio
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When we say we are a doctor, feminist, mother, or student, what exactly does that mean? Certainly for many of us, it means that we identify with our roles in life or work. We enjoy talking about ourselves and quantifying how we feel and who we think we are. However, when do our actions cease being simply activities and begin eclipsing the other elements of our personalities? When does a role or a job become one's identity? When do our definitions of ourselves and others become a limit, a place to stop, the end of growth?
We Americans, generally, define ourselves by what we do for a living. You hear people ask each other that all the time. Just last month at a party, for example, I overheard a man say with great gusto, “So, Ted, tell me what you do for a living.” It was as if having this one nugget of information was vital to the man's understanding of the other man standing before him. Or, maybe the first man needed a tidy framework to put around the conversation in order to carry it forward. Perhaps it's just a casual method most Americans use to break the ice, but it's a compulsion few other countries practice, and it can very much set Americans apart when we travel to other countries.
In Europe, asking someone what they do for their livelihood upon first meeting borders on insult. And, no, this is not because Europeans are haughty or arrogant, despite appearances to the tourists who refuse to learn anything about the cultures in which they're traveling. Most Europeans are merely private about this aspect of their lives. And, they know that what one does for a living has nothing to do with who they are as people.
When I turned 18, my life was messy. It was a tumultuous time. I was often miserable and couldn't figure out why. So, in an effort to explore my perplexing feelings, I decided to have my personality tested. My reasoning was that if I learned more about my personality, I might make better choices and start to feel better. So, after finding a therapist who would administer the test, I ventured forth into a six hundred question, four-hour long Myers-Briggs personality assessment.
Afterward, the therapist explained the nuances of my personality, which was a complex and rare personality type, and the jobs for which I was best equipped based on my answers. Before I knew it, the therapist and I were laughing and having a great time chatting with each other. I talked about my passion for writing, how I wrote at least 15 pages per day in my journal, and wrote short stories and poetry. I told her that I was planning on becoming a very well known writer with gobs of books published. Yes, I had big dreams, and they all centered on the fact that I was a Writer!
Near the end of the discussion, the therapist asked if I had ever considered not writing or giving it up. My smile vanished. My pulse started to race and in a shaky voice, I said, “Beg your pardon?” She simply looked at her notepad and repeated the question. That's when the whole room lurched forward. And, in my head, I began shouting: “What? Not write? Are you nuts, lady? Writing is who I am; it's my entire life! Why are you asking me this?”
She calmly explained that I appear to rest my entire identity on the fact that I write. Her concern was that I was underutilizing the other aspects of my personality in favor of an image of myself that was not a complete picture of my being. She said that conflicts could often result from making that choice.
I just sat there, tasting the words with which she had wrenched my entire being and then thanked her for her time, paid, and left. I tried to forget about what she had asked me, but over the next few weeks it kept nagging at the edges of my consciousness. Her question haunted me.
I slowly started to accept that I'm not my job. I'm not what I do. I'm not the things I wear, buy, or consume. And, an eerie quiet filled my being whenever I asked myself, “Well, then, what am I?” That therapist's question sent me on a decade-long spiritual journey to find out. And, I give thanks everyday for meeting her because she and her question were a huge gift to me.
We describe ourselves in the context of our actions so we can make sense of our place in the culture and be communicative, productive members of society. But, damage can result when we identify so thoroughly with what we do that we lose sight of who we truly are. When we stop at a particular definition of ourselves and wrap our entire identity around an activity, we are not pushing deeper into our spirituality–the area beyond labels, adjectives, and actions. We are in part, ignoring the spirit, and merely living a physical, measurable, work-driven existence.
When we stop asking, “Who am I,” we become less introspective, less aware. We begin to place greater emphasis on our actions and less on our thoughts, our inner dialog, our beings. And, what happens when our identity is cemented around a particular activity and we lose the ability to perform that activity? We are thrust into an identification crisis. We suffer, feel aimless, uprooted, and depressed. We stall. Unable to identify ourselves without the job, we then struggle to make sense of our lives minus that work, and have to reconstruct our identity, which is arduous and painful.
We are not our jobs. We are not the roles we play in life. We are much more than these things. We are spiritual, creative beings with vibrant, active, and seeking souls. We need change. We need growth. We need more than our work.
To be sure, many people do not feel the need to be particularly introspective or even spiritual, but we can all benefit by not strapping our natures down to a job description or holding ourselves under a role that has nothing to do with our spirits. We can realize that being human means more than being a label that we've created. There are so many more things we can become and achieve if we simply open up our ideas about ourselves and each other. For, if we stop questioning, we stop growing.
Elizabeth Florio is a freelance writer who can be reached at liz@butterfatdp.com.