"You know, you'd think it would be easy for a guy to know himself, but it is getting more difficult. Don't kids always think that adults have arrived? Human development theory says you get all of this identity stuff sorted out in adolescence, but I don't believe it. If God has set eternity in our hearts, as it says somewhere in the good book, then who are we to think that we can sort ourselves out? What little we solve in moments of insight and moments of integration gives us only enough sense to finally recognize that complexity which we could never have understood as complexity prior to the insight.
Perhaps this is learning the depth of one's identity, perhaps it is the unraveling of one's identity and experienced as anxiety, perhaps it is what it means to be fallen, perhaps it is what it means to be redeemed one little piece at a time.
All I know is that when I hang on to the idea that I am going to arrive at some sort of permanent identity, full of peace and immutable, it is an invitation for disappointment, disillusionment, and fear. When I find the courage within me to embrace the unknown (of this world and of myself and of God) and release my felt responsibility to always and only succeed, then I do much better."
1 comment:
Expecation, even around something you 'should' know so well, is often times, if not always, an invitation for disappointment... or at least missed expectation.
It is hard not to expect... or to seek expectation. I think this is especially true when you are considering yourself.
At 41, though, I can tell you I know less about who I am or what I may be some day that I ever have before.
On many days I wake with the conclusion that I don't care and find it a futile, meaningless task to continue searching. But at the end of each day, I know a little more.
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