Our World's Search For Identity And Acceptance

When it comes to our own identities, I think there are three things we all want: We want to know who we are and feel like we have a purpose, we want to be loved by others for who we are at our core, and we want to love ourselves.

But how do we discover who we are?

Questions like this have always interested me. Maybe it's because I love to study people, and would consider myself quite good at reading other people and understanding them with very little information. Watching people is incredibly insightful. When I refer to watching people, I don't mean creepily stocking them, I mean truly showing an interest in each person and viewing them as an individual.

Everyone, no matter who they are, has secrets, regrets, fears, dreams, feelings, questions, and beliefs they'll probably die without telling anyone about, and that's terrible! Those are the thoughts that show who a person really is.

In our culture, we're so focused on group identities that there's almost no room left for the individual. This removal of self has had some very negative impacts, the most prominent being that people get so caught up in understanding the group identity they completely lose their ability to think as an individual.

Each one of us has a unique, unrepeatable genetic code, making up a one-of-a-kind mix of physical characteristics. This doesn't even begin to touch on personality traits, belief systems, or individual experiences, which I would argue, shape a person way more than their DNA.

We all have different likes, dislikes, fears, experiences, goals, relationships, etc., and it gets complicated and sometimes out of control. No wonder we're so obsessed with discovering our sense of self. We need some way to categorize all the parts of our being into a coherent order that not only makes sense, but satisfies our yearning for individual purpose and identity.

But here's where I think people go wrong: We create identities that are impermanent because we build them on unsteady foundations, so they're not fulfilling our underlying desire to know, and know for sure, just exactly who we are. Here's what I mean by this:

We can't take all of our incomparable traits and expect them to fit into a generic mold. We can't configure ourselves into just an athlete, just an entrepreneur, just a girlfriend, just a boyfriend, etc. Relationships, money, and careers cannot be the things that define us because in an instant, they can go away.

People leave and die—you cannot put your sole source of fulfillment, self-confidence, and love into one person, or even multiple people for that matter. Not only is it an unfair burden to place on the person you claim to love—my self-worth is in your hands, now love me forever. If you don't, I'll be miserable, and all of my misery will be your fault—it is never, ever going to build a loving and respectful relationship where both people contribute and receive love. It's going to build a relationship where one person is constantly drained, and where the other is still unsatisfied with their sense of worth.

Cash is a material possession, so what kind of identity can a piece of paper offer you? Do you really think you can weave all of those attributes we talked about at the beginning into the shape of a car? What about a house? Or a new pair of Yeezys? As for careers, people get laid off or, on the opposite of extremes, get so caught up in their work that the rest of their life crumbles.

Not building your identity on a relationship, your finances, or your job is probably a principle agreed upon by the majority of people. That doesn't mean that it doesn't happen, it absolutely does, but that most of us agree it's a terrible idea. Here's where it gets controversial though.

We talked about at the beginning how personality traits, belief systems, and personal experiences influence a person's life way more than their physical characteristics. And I think we can also agree that someone's personality, and how they treat other people, gives you a much clearer and more justified picture of their character than their appearance.

If this is so, why is our culture obsessed with group identities that are grounded in similar physical characteristics like race, gender, and sexuality?

Can the amount of melanin in your skin really allow people to understand who you are, what you believe, and what your background was like? Can people make assumptions about an individual, whether they're good or bad assumptions, merely because they "belong" to a certain race? No, they can't. We call that racism.

You can't build your identity on the color of your skin or your nationality. How can all of your unique, individual characteristics be squeezed into one physical characteristic that you share with millions of other people? They can't. Point. Blank. Period. And I think that's why so many people are unhappy with who they are because they're trying to fit their distinctive character into a singular physical trait.

Of course your nationality and race are an important part of you, and you should be proud of your heritage. You should like the way you look because it's a part of who you are. You can't change you race, and, as a Christian, I believe God created each of us in our specific bodies for a reason. But race is not the most important part, and it can't provide you with a sustaining base for your identity.

Well, what about gender? Building an identity and belief system based on your genitals is actually worse than building an identity based on your race. The world's population in 2020 is roughly 7.8 billion with roughly A 50/50 split between men and women. You're taking all of your unique traits and experiences and smashing them into a gender mold that you share with almost 4 billion others? How are you going to find personal fulfillment in that? Spoiler: You can't! Again I'm not saying your gender is not a part of your identity, that would be idiotic. It influences a lot of things biologically, psychologically, emotionally, and personality wise, but you should not ground your worth in it because it cannot fulfill your desire for authentic identity, purpose, acceptance, and self-worth.

And finally sexuality! With the rise of the LGBT rights movement over the last few decades, sexuality is at the forefront of peoples' minds. But just like gender and race, I don't think you can build an identity based on who you're attracted to. It does not work, and in reality is quite shallow. Are the people you find attractive really your most important trait? Is that really the thing that defines you the most, more so than your character? I don’t think it ever should be. You can’t take your one of a kind person and mold it into something as narrow as sexuality.

The reason I mention race, gender, and sexuality is because it is so evident that people are looking to these characteristics alone to offer them an identity, and I think that's dangerous. Identical physical attributes cannot provide the unique individual purpose so many people are striving for, even if they don't realize it. We're so much more complicated than what we look like and who we are attracted to, and I think a lot of people agree with this statement! But I don't think they know where to go from there. Group identities provide something for us to fall back on, but when you take them away, what identity can the individual ascribe to now? So while many may agree that we are all independent individuals, they will continue to ascribe to this group identity in order to avoid the work that it takes to understand who they actually are and what they actually believe.

Not only do these groups offer a one-size-fits-all-prepackaged identity, but they offer that second thing that's so much more important to a multitude of people than identity ever will be—acceptance. Have you realized just how incredibly unpopular it is to have an unpopular identity? More than that, have you realized that people with those unpopular identities, at least at the beginning, are almost always alone in their beliefs? Unique identities come with unique, and very often hated, ideas and lifestyle choices. It's also much easier to hate someone who disagrees with you than it is to listen to their viewpoint.

Human beings have an innate desire to be loved that is probably greater than any other instinct, aside from maybe sex and survival, both of which very arguably tie into love and acceptance. The question now is which one is more important—knowing who you are as an individual or being accepted by those around you? I believe the prior is more important, because what satisfaction could one get from being loved for someone they're not? I'd rather be hated for who I am than loved for someone I am not.

I hope we can all find people who love us for who we really are, even though I believe a strong identity is heavily characterized by its ability to grow and take criticism. (Something that, again, so many people lack.)

There's one last point I'd like to make and it goes back to those three identity groups—race, gender, and sexuality. As some of you were reading, you may have thought, "Well, I don't think people put their full identity into these things," but I think you can tell what someone places their identity in based on how offended they get when they are met by someone who disagrees with them.

People who truly understand who they are don't feel the need to have other people agree with them about their identity, nor do they expect them too! A true sign that you're comfortable in your own skin is that you don't need to be embraced by other people because you know who you are, why you are the way you are, and what you need to do. You don't have time to worry about whether someone approves of your identity, but most of all, most of all, and this is the part so many people fail at—when someone hates you, you don't flip them off and in return hate them because that completely shatters your claim. If you get offended every time someone doesn't like you or agree with you, then you clearly care more about their opinion of your character than upholding your own integrity.

So how can you tell if someone truly knows who they are? By the way they react to those who disagree with them. And if you've ever seen the reactions of people who base their identities in physical things like race, gender, and sexuality, the discussion goes from zero to one hundred real quick when they face criticism or ideas that disagree with their own.

Thanks for reading! Let me know your thoughts on identity in the comments and don’t forget to subscribe to my blog!

It’s been a pleasure writing for you, and until next time—stay weird and stay writing. - Lexi