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The Key to Finding Yourself is to Stop Searching
Three Steps to Stop Questioning Who You Are, And Start Being Them
I’m in the ‘limbo’ years in life. I’m neither here nor there, I’m split between two cities, university, a part-time job, and freelancing, and my friends are suddenly spread out around the country.
I’m still trying to figure out who I am and who I want to be. And its stressful this ‘finding yourself’ business; the constant questioning and self-doubt that comes with trying to find your place in the world that’s only just opened its doors for you. If you ask me to describe myself, I’d craft some sort of a narrative based on who I think I should be or how others see me, but honestly, I really don’t know.
Pop psychology calls this a ‘quarter-life crisis’ — the intense soul searching, stress, and feelings of falling behind that knock twenty-somethings sense of who they are. Many of us are switching roles, location, friend’s groups — all the external factors of what make you, you.
But I’ve come to realise that that’s exactly where the problem lies: defining identity on external factors. The essence of who we are comes from just being, from living our lives authentically and in that moment, and an image of ‘identity’ is simply an after-effect of this. It happens of its own accord.
