Me, Myself & I

Growing up playing sports, my coach always told me I was more of a passer than a shooter. I ‘m afraid I’ve never taken a shot at having my own life.

There are very few sentences that strike as much fear into me as ‘Tell me a bit about yourself.’

The thin line you have to straddle when coming to the conclusion of who you are is so easily crossed. I believe most people would come to an amalgamation of how other people see them, how one wants to think of themselves and how one actually feels about themselves. It’s quite worrisome that I feel so unsure of something as personal and unique as my own personality that I normally fall on what others have told me to identify by. I’ve been told I’m funny, so I must be. I’ve been told I’m quick tempered, so I must be.

After reticently answering the forlorned question, I have not spoken a single word from my own thoughts. How absurd; that my life is characterized not by my own words, but those of others. And of course, negative characteristics protrude far more in my mind than other thoughts, the magnetic spotlight of attention drawn to pessimistic self hyperbole.

This loaning of words is possibly apt, as I fear I do the same in actions. I’m unsure if I live my life for myself. Sure, all my friends label me ‘the nice guy’ for driving them to the airport without hesitation, helping them move in or just being around to talk, but I can’t think of the last time I enacted anything of my own volition.

Do I strive for good grades for myself, or my parents? Are these acts of kindness, or duties?

In a world where there is so much to comprehend and still so much to know, I struggle the most to understand myself. Perhaps innate personal qualities emerge in my brain as ferality, something that should have been curbed by expected decency and cultural norms long ago. Another lock fastened and a key thrown away; pulling another layer over whoever I could have been.

I often struggle to acknowledge that my personality and interests are constructed by my own means. In retrospect, there’s a nagging voice that my personality was constructed as one of negation to those around me. Perhaps I found it difficult to forge my own interests, and thus a personality of a contrarian was subconsciously formed within. It’s hard to discredit this when I’ve seldom left my surroundings and found anything to challenge and silence this narrative.

To borrow a figure of speech, I'm still trying to figure out if these shoes I’ve been wearing all these many miles are mine or not. Perhaps I've grown so accustomed to the orthopedics of a stranger, I've convinced myself they fit.

Perhaps the long dull blade of nihilism doesn’t cut deep enough to draw blood, but it certainly makes one seek bandages. Possibly, the conceived phenomenon of self-actualization is a deception, and it’s what we ascribe to the outward signs of inward conformation. Perhaps everyone else undergoes the same struggle for personal actualization but does not need to question the wicked recipe of nature and nurture that brought them there. Perhaps I’m not alone in undergoing these events, only in the wake of attempting to understand them.

If there’s one thing that grants me solace, it’s the number of times I’ve recounted the words of possibility while writing this. Countless perhaps, numerous hypotheses and plenty of self-wallowing assumptions; they all are indicative of a possibility of me being wrong. And holy cow, would I like to be wrong.

Growing up playing sports, my coach always told me I was more of a passer than a shooter. Alternatively, my parents always told me that no matter what I was doing, I always had the biggest smile on my face. I was just happy to be there.

To steal again the words of others, perhaps ignorance is bliss. In such a case, perhaps ignorance is an expeditious cure for wounds far more effective than time could ever be.