The constant struggle of discovering yourself

K was a nice guy. He had many friends and many more well-wishers. There was hardly anyone in college who had anything even remotely negative to say about him. He was one of those guys—the one who elicits the jealousy of all those around him because he is so good—in fact, he was the perfect guy. He was courteous and would pull out a chair for a friend, he was chivalrous and would defend any woman and he was fun and would liven up every party. For all those who saw him, he had got everything right. He was just that lucky!!

Very few of us genuinely comprehend the human psyche. It is never as simple as we make it out to be. There are layers and layers of understanding that we never delve into. Everyone faces a dilemma on almost a daily basis. The dilemma is not about the archaic struggle between good and evil or choosing right over wrong. It is something more fundamental.

It is the choice we make that decides who we are. Our identity is the basis for all else that a person thrives on, often referred to as one’s self-esteem, self-worth or self-confidence. Further, one’s identity is never fixed. It needs definition, is fluid and requires to be worked on. Take K, for instance. He was a brilliant guy but that did not mean he had it all easy. He chose to be brilliant every day and every second.

You don’t need K as a case study to know what I am talking about. You experience it everyday. It’s just that you don’t realize what this decision-making entails. The dilemma is so instantaneous and short-lived that to imagine its effects over something as essential as one’s identity is incomprehensible, and rightly so!

To want to have another drink when you know you can’t hold your drinks, to be nice to someone when you believe that they deserve otherwise, to keep your voice low so as to not step out of the boundaries of a civilized argument…when have we not found ourselves in some or all of these situations?

If you are known for your self-control, you would want to hold back on your drink and when you are known to be aggressively rude, you would scream and curse even when you are in the wrong. Really, this is all about how you see yourself.

A lot of teenage angst is directed towards exactly such a crisis. How to achieve an equilibrium between how the world sees me and how I want to be seen? This is the eternal teenage dilemma, though it never really goes away because it can’t. And this is because you can never fully create a defined bounded identity for yourself that corresponds perfectly to how people see you and remain satisfied with it. It just can’t be.

There is a very powerful saying, “You are what you pretend to be!” You cannot escape the demands that society makes on you, but you must live with them. These demands shape you into what you are here and now.

A lot of teenagers face this problem. This stage in their lives is especially precarious for them as they do not know what to do. They observe everything around them and want to imitate what they see, believing those behavior patterns to be correct. Cheerleaders are popular and jocks are famous—it’s perceptions like these that color their vision of life. They are also too young to risk breaking a behavior pattern, so they mold themselves into that pattern. Some succeed, while others fail.

K had a very close friend called J. They had been friends for the longest time. Their first memories were that of playing together even as little children. They had faced all of life’s experiences together—their first low score, their first crush, their first love disappointment—they were together in everything.

However, to an outsider who did not know the dynamics of this relationship, it seemed highly improbable that there was so much in common between K and J because they were so different from each other. J was the Oxford definition of an introvert. He rarely talked and avoided crowds. He was one of those guys who passed by you unnoticed more often than not.

What was J afraid of—company, friends or conversations? None of these—J was afraid of being vulnerable. He was afraid of putting himself out there and then being judged for it. He was a regular smart kid. But for all his intelligence, he could not comprehend why anyone would jump to label him as one kind or another the moment he chose to talk.

However, what he didn’t realize was that this labeling was almost a reflex action, at least for most teenagers. And by not speaking in public to those around him, he was being labeled an introvert anyway.

It wasn’t as if J didn’t care of the world’s opinion of him. How could he not care? After all, K was his closest friend and the obvious difference between them was difficult to ignore. He saw how K mingled with all kinds of people, was loved by everyone and was popular everywhere. And then he saw that he was just the opposite—he wasn’t loved by those around him. On the contrary, J did care but didn’t know how to express his feelings.

The point is not to give the reader a powerful insight into how to solve the ever-present teenage dilemma because this isn’t possible. You cannot have a magic potion that tells you exactly who you are supposed to be and should be. That is something you have to find out for yourself. The point is to not give up the fight, nor to give in. This dilemma is natural and almost normal. Live it through and someday you will be able to confidently say, “I am what I am!”

PS: J and K both grew up to extremely successful gentlemen with loving wives and beautiful children. Most importantly, their earliest memories were still those of them playing together!