The Search For Identity
In the earliest stages of childhood development, we learn that what we do and how well we do it, will define us in a favourable way. Praise became a way to know how special and wonderful we are. We learn that to perform and accomplish is rewarding, especially if I can do it better than others.
Just one example of this is quite evident within the educational system where we are presented with a number of gold stars according to how well we have done in our grades. To the recipients of those that have been granted the maximum amount of stars is that they feel good and the general message is that I must become competitive and stay in front to receive that praise. This appears to be a positive outcome but, in turn my self worth and sense of self becomes dependent on external conditions and circumstances.
To the under achievers who fall short of receiving those stars for their grades, their intepretation of themselves could be that I am not enough and I have no value as I am. In turn, I am exposed to feeling inadequate and self-esteem has to some degree, taken a dive. From this position, loss of authenticity takes place and I have now also become dependent on external circumstances to secure a sense of self worth.
Our departure from childhood innocence and being whole and unique has now commenced. What has grown in its place is to compare myself to others and formulate strategies and ideas to secure a sense of self.
The outcome of this early childhood process of reward and praise becomes evident as I grow older within society, as I am defined quite often by the position held in society such as career, social status, physical appearance, special abilities followed by an extensive inventory of possessions that evaluates my success in life. Since the ego is a derived sense of self, it needs to identify with external things. It also needs to be both defended and fed constantly from the external world in the hope that one will heal and become whole again.
This is the programme that we respond to from early childhood development of which we had no choice but to participate.
The difficulty posed by this situation is that this inbred competitiveness, which is ego driven, has reared a society that measures their self worth by amounts of accumulated material and in turn, lives in fear and distrust of each other. This in turn has caused such a division in society that to bring about a revolution of brotherhood would almost seemingly be impossible.
All matters of the heart disappear under the weight of this system that we all breath life into.
This is a compelling situation. What if we spent our entire life chasing after these symbols of success and aspiring to live up to the ego’s mantra that more is good to define our identity ?
If this is our situation, then it would seem quite evident that if my
identity is aligned to what I have and I loose what I possess,
then by all reasons, my identity will also be lost.
“Thoroughly unprepared, we take the step into the afternoon of life,
worse still, we take this step with the false assumption
that our truths and ideals will serve us as hitherto.
But we cannot live the afternoon of life according
to the programme of life’s morning, for what was
great in the morning will be little at evening,
and what in the morning was true will
at evening have become a lie”
From the stages of life.
Carl Jung