Becoming Who We Are

Like most of us, my personal goal in life has been to be better when I finish than when I started. I've told my seminar participants many times that instead of a detailed life plan, my desire is just to keep my learning curve up. Actually, I want to keep obtaining knowledge that can be applied to business and life circumstances. Through this process my hope is that I continue to grow in wisdom and character.

As noble as this may sound, without understanding of who and what I am it is doubtful I will end up where I'm supposed to be. It's a little like driving my car as I get older; taking my eyes off the road for just a few seconds can quickly take me where I'm looking! Each of us has a special destiny that can only be obtained if we know where we are going. Understanding who we are is a key to getting to where we are going!

Who am I? Here is my brief synopsis. I have a body, a soul (a mind, will and emotions) and a spirit (a conscience and intuition). My mind has a brain which translates thoughts into action through my body. My soul accumulates life experiences which produces thoughts patterned after those experiences. My spirit checks the behavior of my soul when my thoughts and actions are not good by making me feel guilty. The combination of my soul and spirit becomes my heart, or my center from which all thought, emotions, behavior and actions emanate. I've got all this equipment so I must have purpose! I mean, I'm already something so what am I to become?

Many of us are continually trying to change because we don't like who we are. Sometimes we don't even like other people when they are like we are! If we are trying to change ourselves, it begs the question, "Who are we supposed to be?"

We often work so hard trying to find what we are to do that we sometimes don't get around to finding out who we are supposed to be or to become. I worked 60-70 hours a week for most of my career trying to become something, to find my way to the top of the pile so to speak. It only got me tired! Only when I stopped trying to do did I begin to be!

Careful! I'm not advocating taking up space on a park bench for years to explore the mysteries of the universe in our minds. I'm simply saying that when we spend our daily lives operating at warp speed, we can miss the signposts leading us to who we are to become. It's been said that we were created as human beings, not human doings!

So, how can we find our way to who we should become? For me, it is an ongoing process of separating myself from the thinking and reasoning that continually goes on in my mind, at least for brief periods of time. A life pattern for me, my mind rarely can be turned off. I'm constantly planning, mulling over past events or thinking about what I'm going to do. As most will agree, our business and personal lives must include a certain amount of these activities. The problem surfaces, however, when we are consumed and controlled by the activities of our minds. Our minds often control us instead of us using our minds to accomplish our purposes!

As I shared in the opening paragraph, scientists, theologians, and most religious doctrines agree that we are three part beings. We have a body, a soul and an inner being. Our bodies and souls are connected to the world around us; our inner being is connected to something else (for me it's God). If I've learned anything by living, it's that lasting change must begin on the inside. I can make changes in my behavior and actions in my mind but life's pressures often destroy my good intentions. One person shared, "We're like a tube of toothpaste. When we're squeezed, what's on the inside comes out!"

Here's what some of us have learned: we are helpless to change the things in our hearts. We can make changes in our behavior, but it is rare for those changes to last for a lifetime. Whether it's getting angry at an incompetent store clerk, impatient with a client, irritated at a family member or worse things, I sometimes don't do a good job of controlling my reactions. I want to be free of the offense that rises up in me to react rationally and in a way that will benefit others. Controlling my reactions caused by hurts and wounds deep in my heart is impossible for me. The good news is that it's not impossible for God! What do you think?