Why It’s So Important To Know Who We Are

We are more than what we think, say or even do. And so is everyone else. We’re only a proper conversation away from each other.

Photo by Randy Jacob

Our lives are — among other things — the stories of us deciding, changing or accepting who we are. Identity plays an critical role from the moment we are born.

As kids, we are somebody’s children, and that is good enough for a while. It’ll be some years before we worry about identity. Our first experience of the struggle will probably be in primary school, the first time that we may be defined by others as the smart one, the dumb one, the funny one, the smelly one, the cool one, etc. If we like it, it may well define who we are for years to come. If we don’t, our struggle to define ourselves against it might accomplish the same.

Adolescence, likely the most turbulent time of our lives, doesn’t forgo the opportunity to use identity to mess us up further: this is a time of affirmation, of kids who must prove to the world they are no longer kids. Our first brushes with ideology belong here, and so do our first encounters with authority. Indeed, it is often in this period that we can find a trace of the foundations of the person we are today.