Personal identity is everything that we are: physical, psychological, and cultural characteristics, starting with our name and date of birth. It is also the expression of the equation having a series of personal aspects: way of thinking, coping with problems, communicating with others, interests, abilities, behavior towards the outside world, emotional relationships with people or places, future projects and so on All this makes us unique and unmistakable in the eyes of others, which gives us a certain sense of definition, belonging and continuity over time, which allows us to say every day “this is me” and I recognize myself as the same person even in face of major changes.
“Who am I? he had been wondering for many days.
“You are a pig” replied the mother pig to the piglet.
When we say you are, we reach the highest level of being: identity.
In the given case, the question is asked by a pig, but how many times we use the words ourselves, unconscious of their power? “You’re messy;” “You’re wrong”; “You are a liar”, etc. If the use of such expressions is dangerous for adults, it is a matter of life and death for the children, as the words we use come to life and acquire a particular meaning in the mind of the listener; if in the case of adults there is a presumption that their identity is already formed (although we know very well that most of them still need confirmation, and repetitions that has to give new confirmations), in the case of children their identity is still in the process of formation, thus it is a very delicate issue and deserves the utmost attention from those who form/ educate them.
In fact, identity is a process: development begins at birth, occurs mainly in relation to others, and does not stop in adulthood but continues throughout all the stages of life. Throughout our life, we add, remove or change qualities, features, interests, and / or abilities in respect to our identity. Many of the things we do every day help us to strengthen or weaken our sense of identity. We evaluate ourselves indefinitely.
„We are what we repeatedly do.” (Aristotle)
Some aspects of personal identity are quite obvious, such as gender, nationality, social class (there is usually little doubt about them), but other elements too, such as psychological characteristics (these are more worrisome because we do not have a precise idea of how we really are). Thus, we often wonder if we are smart or stupid, courageous or cowardly, etc.
The sudden changes in life, such as marriage, birth of one’s own child, the death of loved ones, or even winning billions at the lottery, can profoundly change a person’s self-image, which can create a feeling of discomfort and disorientation until the person is accommodated with the new situation of life and the new identity, taking responsibility for it and behaving accordingly.
The power of (positive or negative) image that we have about ourselves is a human need as essential as that of survival and the perpetuation of the specie: we need to constantly become aware of who we are. The sense of identity is very much linked to the places that are part of our everyday lives, the places where we feel we have a role to play: our home with our family, our school with our classmates and teachers, our work with our colleagues and superiors, our hobbies, our neighborhood, our city, our region, our country, our continent, our planet. If we had suddenly found ourselves – against our will – in a different environment, with unknown people, without our personal impact that we usually convey, without being able to maintain our role and habits, we would feel a strong oscillation in our sense of identity, with a strong sense of nakedness and a fundamental uncertainty about who we are. Isn’t that what happens to immigrants, or those who were imprisoned by mistake and/or unexpectedly?
Inspired by the above story about our piglet, I would like to suggest a small question designed to help us form an intelligent identity for whomever God brings in our life. Try to imagine which of the statements below would you want to hear about your own person?
- “You are a lazy student / worker!” or
- “Are you a hardworking student / student, how come you currently study / work so little?”
What if you uesed the same technique regarding your own person?
I stop here at the moment, encouraging you to become the best and smartest version that you can possibly imagine, wishing you a lot of courage, progress, and inspiration for holiness.