There are many different parts of the human psyche. There are many different faces that
make up who we are. When you leave your home, you are different people to the
different individuals you meet. You're somebody's brother or sister, then you are
somebody's boss or somebody's employee or somebody's contractor. On and on it goes.
We're different people to the people we find ourselves in different situations. We may be
in the same place, but at different times, we're different people or we are different people
at the same time, but at different places.
In other words, we're different people in terms of times and space. What happens to
these identities? It's as if you're wearing all these different masks with different angles
on them. How do you reconcile all of this?
Unfortunately, as I've mentioned, we live in a world of specialization. So we're forced to
slice and dice and pick and choose. This does a big disservice to just the rich tapestry of
all identities and capabilities.
There is power in wholeness
When you choose to live with full integrity, this means you reconnect with everything
that defines you. In other words, integrity means you connect the potential with what is
manifesting, you reconcile what you desire with what you are producing.
This requires introspection and a whole lot of honesty. This means you reconnect with
everything that defines you. There's the physical you, the biochemical you, the
emotional you, the spiritual you, the psychological you, the cultural you, the relational
you. I can go on and on.
Unfortunately, a lot of us just focus on one thing and one thing alone. In fact, there's a
lot of us who define ourselves as one dimensional human beings. If you need proof of
this, go to a party and talk to people and the first thing out of most people's mouths is
what they do for a living.
They would say, “Hi! My name is Jerry. I'm an attorney.” or “Hello! My name is Mindy.
I'm a doctor at the nearby hospital.” or “My name is Albert and I work for Microsoft.”
People tend to define themselves in a one dimensional way. We always try to connect
with some larger phenomena that somehow casts a shadow on our own identity.
For example, when somebody introduces himself or herself as working for Facebook,
what's the first thing that comes to your mind? Facebook has a brand and there's a value
judgment there that's very different from somebody stepping up to you and saying,
“Hey! My name is Joe. I'm an executive at Starbucks.”
In the case of Joe, there are 2 things going on. When he says hes an executive, that
brings to mind certain ideas. And when they say “Starbucks”, that also brings a whole
other set of issues.
Unfortunately, a lot of us are just focused on one thing. We become one dimensional. It's
as if we're walking cartoons. And the worst part to all of this is we don't even realize it.
If we're lucky we get up to 2 or even 3 of these factors in terms of us defining ourselves.
That doesn't even come close.
By restricting ourselves to the kind of identity we have, we let go of a lot of our
connections to the rest of the natural world. This is why we suffer. This is why we feel
incomplete. This is why we feel so susceptible to stress, to changing to situations and to
the vagaries of life.
This is why we struggle.
