I’m sat in a railway station waiting for a train, conscious of my flaws. And I find myself wondering what we can do if we don’t like who we are?
It’s a question that I suspect most of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives – be it because of some perceived flaw in our physical appearance, a consequence of a behaviour we’re ashamed of, or perhaps an inherent dislike of how who we are affects how others treat us.
And there are, of course, a number of ways in which we can answer, each to some extent determined by what it is we don’t like.
Let’s start then with a trivial dislike about our hair colour for example. Well that’s easy isn’t it – because we can change our hair colour as easily as we can our shoes.
We can alter our external appearance from head to toe and so proceed on our merry way without really having fundamentally changed who we are at all.
And the same logic applies to those who have physical characteristics that they’re similarly dissatisfied with but which aren’t so easily modified – an unsightly facial scar perhaps or simply a desire to be taller. These things aren’t completely impossible to change, but doing so is distinctly more difficult, and considerably more expensive too.
And even then, whilst people might feel better about themselves as a result of these changes, few would genuinely consider that they weren’t the same person before and after whatever intervention they’d employed.
But what if I’m overweight, and I adjust my diet in such a way that I slowly become thin? Does that make me a different person, or simply a person who has changed their behaviour, thus revealing themselves to be a more complex individual than previously appreciated – one who on some occasions can overindulge, and on others can exercise restraint?
Which raises a more fundamental question. If I am generally considered a decent enough person, but then one day indulge in some seemingly unprovoked act of violence, can I really claim it’s not like me to act in such a way? Because wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that that is exactly the sort of person I am, because that is what, in this instance, I have shown myself to be?
And in the same way, of course, if I am generally considered unpleasant and rude, but then one day act kindly to a stranger, that doesn’t change who I am either. And because it cannot atone for my previous poor behaviour, what some might see as a redeeming feature cannot actually redeem me at all.
In each situation thus far, therefore, we have to accept that we are who we are. And what we do doesn’t alter this fundamental fact. Instead our actions reveal the complex nature of our personalities. So then, far from changing our nature, our changing behaviour defines us as those who are undefinable. And, at the same time, ever more difficult to understand.
Which brings me to that last group of dissatisfied individuals that I mentioned at the outset – those who are unhappy being who they are because of how others treat them.
Which is wholly understandable of course. Because, as we’ve seen, they can’t help but be who they are. So then, it’s not them who should be forced to behave differently, but those who are treating them so badly in the first place.
But therein lies the problem – because they are no more able to change than those who require them to.
But we’re not done yet, because there is something else that makes it impossible for us to change. And that’s our inability to see we need to.
Because it isn’t we who decide what is right and wrong. Like truth, the nature of good and evil is objective – it has to be if we are to escape the anarchy that inevitably follows when we all see fit to do what is right in our own eyes. Which means that, blind to our own faults, even when we do like who we are, we still need to change.
So what can we do if we don’t like who we are?
Well first of all we should stop trying to do the impossible. We can’t change, and the more we insist that we can the more stuck we will inevitably become, making it ever more difficult – for both ourselves and everybody else.
We should then do what is easy. We need to look for answers outside of ourselves and recognise what really is. We need to admit the truth that, not only are we not the people we want to be, we are not the people we ought to be. And that we really are totally helpless to effect the necessary change.
But in recognising that this is the problem, we stop struggling, and thereby, paradoxically perhaps, bring about the very conditions necessary, not to change ourselves, but to be changed – by somebody else.
Which, ancient wisdom tells us, comes about not by a change in the way we act, but a change in the way we think. Rather than keeping on fighting, asserting our right to be whoever we want to be, we need to experience the joy of being conquered, the freedom of being conformed, and the pleasure of being transformed into who we were always supposed to be.
Because it is only when we are so constrained that we will arrive at our destination and find that we are freer than we have ever been before.
Which is why that same ancient wisdom goes on to insist:
‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.’ [Romans 12:2]
What can we do if we don’t like who we are?
It’s a question that I suspect most of us have asked ourselves at some point in our lives – be it because of some perceived flaw in our physical appearance, a consequence of a behaviour we’re ashamed of, or perhaps an inherent dislike of how who we are affects how others treat us.
And there are, of course, a number of ways in which we can answer, each to some extent determined by what it is we don’t like.
Related posts:
To read ‘Luther and the War in Ukraine – on becoming a theologian of the cross’, click here
To read ‘Drawing the Line’, click here