Role Identity

As soon as we are born, we take on many roles.

The mother, the brother, the daughter, the funny one, the shy one, the doctor, the gardener, etc. We then add our nationality, our beliefs, our religion, and our culture.

When our worth, our sense of survival, relies solely on these identity roles, we think we cannot live without them, and we will fight and hold onto them, even if it kills us. This has been the group identity that we have held onto for centuries in our human history. 

We stick these roles onto ourselves like badges, and we start identifying ourselves as that is who I am. However, we tend to forget the most essential role in this world, and that is, a human being.

So yes, I may identify with many roles in this life, but it does not separate and divide me from the essence of who I am.

When we truly understand what it is to be a human being, we realize that we all have something profoundly in common. We all feel, we hurt, we laugh, we cry, we love.

What we need to remember is that these identity roles are just that, roles. I can play this role, I know and can identify with this role, but it does not control me. If one of these roles, change, shift, disappear, or is taken away, I am still me, a human being.