Identity Crisis
Since coming home from my mission, I've had a bit of an identity crisis. I have had a hard time trying to figure out how who I have become fits in with who I am, and how to present that to my friends from before and after the mission. The best example of this would be in my name. When I went to college I started calling myself Kate instead of Katie, so all my friends from college know me by that name. However, of course, on my mission I was Sister Leonard. Then, one of my friends suggested that I go by the nickname Kitty and has started introducing me as such. So, I have four names floating around for myself and have no clue which I actually feel like I want to be called by. I feel like Sister Leonard still, and the missionaries and people from church call me that, while my family calls me Katie, some of my good friends call me Kate, and some new ones call me Kitty. I don't know which one fits me the best, and part of the problem is I am not sure how I want to come across to people. I have all these conflicting parts of my personality and new parts that I developed on my mission, and I don't know what parts I want to develop and be known for, especially for the rest of my adult life. I don't know who I am right now.
I was thinking about this, and then I realized that I can never know who I am right now. We are beings of possibility. It's like what I said one time in my emails home from my mission. As people we are not who we were or who we are, we are who we can become. That means that if I sat down and tried to "find" myself, I wouldn't be able to find anything. Like George Bernard Shaw said "Life isn't about finding yourself, it is about creating yourself." As soon as I start trying to find myself, I stop becoming. And then I can't find anything.
In this little identity crisis I have decided to choose what I want to be instead of letting it happen to me. This is what my new convert Oscar did when he chose to be baptized. He has been having an identity crisis his entire life, but in that moment he decided to not say that he wasn't religious enough or that he wasn't a good enough person to join the church, and choose to follow God. He decided to make his identity a church member by deciding to be one. I can decided to be who I want to be and make that happen. I can choose to make my identity a Christlike, loving person. I can choose to be smart, caring, open, helpful, patient, responsible and good by my actions. That doesn't mean I can just say I am those things, though. I have to align my actions with those desires. Just like Oscar couldn't just say he was a church member, he had to align his actions by being baptized and confirmed and staying faithful to his covenants, I must do that to become what I want to be. But it is under my control and I am free to choose who I am and who I will become.
God gives us this freedom. In the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:27 he says: "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." He has given us the power to choose for ourselves good or evil, and because this world is all about becoming, by extension, to become good or evil. Every important choice in life leads us to that. And we are always free to choose again and to start over. We are free to choose to become something other than we are through Jesus Christ's sacrifice. We just call it repentance. I am going to try this week to become a bit more of who I want to be by choosing my identity. I can be who I want to be through Jesus Christ.
I was thinking about this, and then I realized that I can never know who I am right now. We are beings of possibility. It's like what I said one time in my emails home from my mission. As people we are not who we were or who we are, we are who we can become. That means that if I sat down and tried to "find" myself, I wouldn't be able to find anything. Like George Bernard Shaw said "Life isn't about finding yourself, it is about creating yourself." As soon as I start trying to find myself, I stop becoming. And then I can't find anything.
In this little identity crisis I have decided to choose what I want to be instead of letting it happen to me. This is what my new convert Oscar did when he chose to be baptized. He has been having an identity crisis his entire life, but in that moment he decided to not say that he wasn't religious enough or that he wasn't a good enough person to join the church, and choose to follow God. He decided to make his identity a church member by deciding to be one. I can decided to be who I want to be and make that happen. I can choose to make my identity a Christlike, loving person. I can choose to be smart, caring, open, helpful, patient, responsible and good by my actions. That doesn't mean I can just say I am those things, though. I have to align my actions with those desires. Just like Oscar couldn't just say he was a church member, he had to align his actions by being baptized and confirmed and staying faithful to his covenants, I must do that to become what I want to be. But it is under my control and I am free to choose who I am and who I will become.
God gives us this freedom. In the Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2:27 he says: "Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself." He has given us the power to choose for ourselves good or evil, and because this world is all about becoming, by extension, to become good or evil. Every important choice in life leads us to that. And we are always free to choose again and to start over. We are free to choose to become something other than we are through Jesus Christ's sacrifice. We just call it repentance. I am going to try this week to become a bit more of who I want to be by choosing my identity. I can be who I want to be through Jesus Christ.
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