Who Are You?

If I ask you the question "Who are you?", how would you answer? Would you tell me you’re a cop, a teacher, a homemaker, a painter, or whatever your occupation is? When contemplating who you are, do you think in terms of the things you do or the job you hold? This is an important issue for many of us. Our society in the United States goes to great lengths to tell us we are what we do. We far too often judge what other people are by what they do as an occupation.

In reference to the question "Who are you?", think about what the answer would mean. If your answer would be a description of your vocation, then what are you when you are not performing the work of that vocation? If who you are is an accountant, then who are you when you are not working on your accounts? Do you cease to exist?

Of course, you don’t cease to exist.

These words you use to describe yourself are not who you are. You are not what you do. You are a human being, not a human doing. Another way to ask the question "Who are you?" would be "Who are you being?"

Remember your English grammar from way back when. We conjugated verbs in my classes. When working with the verb be, we did the following:

Singular Plural

I am We are

You are You are

He/she/it is They are

None of those forms of the verb be say anything about doing. The verb do means perform, execute, to work at, etc. In my dictionary the first meaning of the verb be is "to exist." That is not a concept of doing.

In describing who you think you are, you might also consider your relationships. You might answer that you are a husband, girlfriend, grandparent, employee, etc. The same holds true as it did in regard to what you do. You do not cease to exist when you are not in a relationship of any kind.

So who you are is not determined by your occupation or your relationship to other humans.

Who you are is determined by what’s inside. And what’s inside is dependent upon what you choose. You make that choice every moment of your life on this earth. You have the ability to choose to be loving or to be hateful. You can choose to hold onto that grudge, or be forgiving. You can choose to be a caring, involved parent or neglect your child. If you are hurtful, dishonest, unfaithful, critical, or rude, it is simply because you have chosen at a given moment to be those things.

There’s no getting around it, is there? You are the one responsible for who you are. No job, no person, no thing determines who you are. You can decide this very moment and tomorrow and next year who you really want to be. That is your ultimate freedom. And it can never be taken from you.

WHO ARE YOU?

We salute your right to be who you want to be,

Lana & Dan Keating