We don’t need to look to the outside to ground our identity

Decisiveness is a universal quality of successful people.

The ability to make choices quickly and confidently, and not hastily and arrogantly, is precisely what gives us the ability to take action and move our story forward.

However, when it comes to the deeply complicated issue of our identities, making a decision isn’t always necessary or even useful. Because we’re not supposed to be one thing in life. Part of being an evolving human being is accepting our endowment of the freedom to explore our curiosities. There will never be one thing we do or be for the rest of our lives.

There are norms created by religious, political and corporation institutions that try to eclipse our ability to see all of life’s possibilities, but we don’t have to buy into them.

Donaghue, in his empowering book about rebel love, jokes that nature includes everything. It’s not gay or straight, male or female. We’re the only species that obsesses about such labels.

His point isn’t just about sexuality or gender, it’s about being a person. In fact, there’s a question each of us can ask ourselves.

What if you were introduced to the revolutionary idea that you didn’t have to choose?

Think about how that applies to everything from your career to your relationship to your next holiday vacation. Imagine the delicious freedom that comes from doing, having or being whatever you want, knowing that doesn’t say everything or even anything about your identity.

You whole world opens up. You have permission to explore your desires, passions and curiosities without picking a label as one thing or another. Without having to uphold strict standards of what the world decided was acceptable.

As one of my song lyrics goes, it’s a part of me that used to be the heart of me.

Why the hell not? Doesn’t it make you feel alive to committing to seeing where something takes you?

To me, that’s what it means to be human. Reminds me of all the outlandish costumes my wife and I wear for various events, holidays, or random days of the week.

That kind of thing never used to be part of my life before we met. But my wife taught me that being open and malleable to the shape of our identity, even if only for one night at a time, allows multiple possibilities to exist within ourselves.

Every one of those experiences deepens our empathy, acceptance and imagination another notch. Emerson was right when he observed that the mind, once stretched by a new idea, never returns to its original dimensions.

The same goes with the soul. We don’t need to look to the outside to ground our identity. We don’t have to be and and do what our environment tells us to do.

Each of us is a fluid entity.

Take it from a guy who literally labels himself, every day. You don’t need to limit yourself to one nametag. Or any nametag at all.

Maybe it doesn’t even matter what the label reads.

LET ME ASK YA THIS…
What if you were introduced to the revolutionary idea that you didn’t have to choose?