[hriza]

This is something I went through, and it’s something I struggle with from time to time. It’s also something I have come to accept and learned to see that it is something that is transient. Things change and allow yourself to grow, to get better. In my less than glorious moments I have made the mistake to allow them to define me. And that’s what it was, a choice to accept something as a defining point of my identity. We all make mistakes. One of which is to let things that no longer matter define us.

Permanence is a western notion. I don’t think eternity is something that is permanent; it’s something that will forever keep on changing. Moses cast the commandments in stone; we look to printed texts as authority regardless if we speak of law, religion, academia or company policy. The contract is binding. The contract is sacred. Nature doesn’t work this way. We are born, we live our lives, have children and we die. Species and societies evolve and people grow in understanding, hopefully but not always for the better.

My question to you is, do you see yourself as permanent? A finished product of your genes, environment and history of accumulated events or do you see yourself as a thinking and feeling individual capable of choice and self creation? History is history. Identity is the sum of your thoughts and values, your understanding of yourself, other people and how the world works, your interpretation of personal and social history, a choice of the numerous roles and personality traits you have assumed in your life, or the traits you might wish to try. Identity is subject to change, do you want to write those changes yourself or to have them written haphazardly by circumstance.

Everything else is habit. It will requiren effort, but if there’s something for which I feel a strong conviction it’s that choice does exist. c