Who are you?

Do you really know?

There are so many ways to respond to this question, depending upon your station and age in life. When we are younger we easily identify with the school grade we are in, or with the family that we are born into. It is common for people to refer to someone as “the doctor’s kid,” or  “there goes the plumber’s boy,”  etc.  We refer to our friends as “that kid in the seventh grade,” or “the senior on the track team.”

This shifts again as we get older. If we go on to university, our identity is strongly associated with that school, and the major (or lack of one) that we decide upon.”There’s the psych major,” we frequently hear.  And after graduation, we refer to ourselves and others as that “Columbia grad,” or the “girl from Harvard.”

This identity shifts again as we enter the job market, and the position we hold gains prominence in our consciousness and identity. “I just went out with that lawyer,” you could easily hear friends saying. or,  “that Doctor was a real jerk.”

The identity shifts again as we partner and couple up. “There’s Cindy’s boyfriend,” you might hear. Or “that’s Jack’s wife.

As time goes on and lives evolve, things shift once more. We refer to people based upon events that occur to them, such as going to jail, or even contracting a disease.  It’s common to hear, “there’s the girl that had cancer,” or “that’s the guy who got caught embezzling.”

There are many hats, or identities that we wear throughout our lives, and those identities can change at warp speed, especially today.  So who are we then?  Are we those identities, or is there something else, some other true identity that trumps them all.

It’s very possibly this:  We are spiritual beings having a temporary human experience. No more and no less.