We are not human-doings. We are human-beings.
Our language reveals the problem clearly. When asked "What do you do?" we answer with our profession, not our essence: "I am a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, a fireman." But this is what we do, not what we are. Yet we've internalized this so deeply that when we lose our job or can no longer perform as expected, we feel our identity has shattered. Our sense of self-worth, our self-image, collapses because we've built them on a foundation of doing rather than being.
Finding our true identity is finding what we have always been.
When someone encourages you to "just be yourself" before a difficult performance, they're pointing to something essential. When your sense of identity roots itself in being rather than in the endless drive to become, you're freed from the tyranny of outcomes. Everything we pursue to increase our self-perceived value only obscures our actual value. We live from inadequacy instead of authenticity.
IDENTITY
Activity does not produce identity. Identity produces activity.
From an early age, we were asked: "What are you going to be when you grow up?" Hidden in this simple question was a powerful implication—one repeated throughout our formative years. We were becoming, never quite being. Is it any wonder then that even in adulthood, we carry this deep psychological need to become rather than simply be? A restless discontent settled within us, one that no achievement could satisfy. No matter how far we climbed, something whispered that we were never quite enough.
