Tackling One Of Life's Big Questions
Who Am I?
Hey friends,
I hope you all have had a fantastic week!
I’ve done it again…
It’s 9:29 PM on a Wednesday, and I’m in a mild state of panic trying to get this newsletter ready.
It’s 9:59 PM, and I took a 30-minute detour to eat a doughnut, browse Twitter and watch a Youtube video.
Alright, it’s time to Vamos Jason.
Words are magical. They have the power to make people do things, because they carry ideas. So we must respect words. Cherish, protect and polish them.
The most powerful of words are small ones. The most powerful of sentences are short ones.
Sentences like, “Who Am I?”
3 words. 6 letters. 1 Question Mark. And a deep existential dread all rolled into this innocent-looking sentence.
You might not have given your identity any thought for a while. But go ahead, ask yourself that question, “Who am I?”
You can tell me in the comments below. Give me the good, the bad and the ugly parts of you. I’m not here to judge.
When you’re a child, it’s easy, you just list a few facts about yourself:
Jason, 5, Birmingham.
As you grow older, you add what you do into the mix.
Jason, 19, Psychology undergraduate, London.
Jason, 26, Poker Player, World Traveller.
As if that’s any more revealing to who you are.
I’ve spent a stupidly long time thinking about this question. For most of my life, I’ve struggled with my identity and have been yearning to find the core sense of myself.
But after an identity crisis, rebelling against my mum, becoming a poker player, a breakup, an acid trip, a six-month visit to the motherland, another identity crisis, a quarter-life crisis, a devastating heartbreak and leaving poker all behind, I think I have finally found an answer.
There's a problem with the "who am I?" question. It implies there is actually a plausible answer. As if our identity is fixed.
But we're not nouns. We’re verbs.
We make ourselves nouns because it simplifies us and makes us easier to comprehend. Yet it’s hard for us to comprehend what it’s like to meet ourselves. The effect we have, the space we fill, the energy we bring to a room. These are all intangible because we only know what it’s like to be ourselves. We only ever get to view ourselves in 2D — we only see ourselves in reflections but also in the reactions we get from people.
But our identity is more than just a few facts. It’s our behaviour, our core beliefs and values. And they can change over time. Who we are is a state of flowing action and potential. We are doing things. We are verbs.
The Irony Of The Self
It makes perfect sense to seek a deeper understanding of oneself. We want to be aware of our thoughts, feelings, hopes and fears.
But the irony is that the more you seek to identify who you are, the more fragile you feel about yourself.
When I gave up searching and started seeing my identity as an ongoing process, life began to make sense. Rather than see myself as a noun, I embraced this flowing sense of action and potential. Every day is an opportunity to reframe, reorganise, rethink and reconsider myself.
I don’t think I will ever be able to understand the deep complexity of myself. No amount of personality tests can give me a full answer. But I can ask a different question: How would I like to live life?
Life is lived in seasons, and currently, I’m in the season of adventure. I can’t predict what the future will hold, but every day I can wake up and take action towards these values:
Impeachable character: To always do the right thing and be responsible, especially in hard times. Be the type of person with whom people are always proud to be associated with.
Sincere candour: Have a level of self-awareness that requires being honest with oneself and communicate hard truths to others.
Competitive greatness: Some days I will be great, some days I will be bad, and some days I will be average. But every day, I will show up and put in my best effort.
Abundant love: Even when I'm heartbroken, drowning in loneliness or lost, to still live life with a heart full of love and kindness.
Who Am I?
Who knows.
—Jason Vu Nguyen
Poem Of The Week: Instructions - Rudy Francisco
Gather your mistakes, rinse them with honesty and self-reflection, let dry until you can see every choice and the regret becomes brittle, cover the entire surface in forgiveness, remind yourself that you are human and this too is a gift.