Discovering you is hard, but worth it

​There are a lot of questions that guide us through this journey of life. One of the main ones: who am I?

Many of us plow through every day wondering who we are and what we're here for. The problem is, we aren't always willing to do everything we can to discover the actual answer.

We are often bent on discovering who we are in this life while being distracted or subdued by that very life.

I recently heard David Goggins tell a story about his own journey of discovery.

Goggins is a paramedic. And he wants to discover just how good he can become at being that paramedic. So Goggins spends four hours a day studying text books. But because he has a learning disability, the way he learns is to hand write every word he reads onto another piece of paper.

Over and over. One page at a time. Every word. Until he's confident he knows the material as well as he can know it.

Many of us would read that and say, I could never do that. But actually, yes we could. We just wouldn't CHOOSE to do that. We wouldn't choose to give up what needs to be given up to discover who we are and who we can be in those four hours.

It's truth, that discovering who we are is a sacrificial journey. What stands in our way of that discovery isn't that we don't know what to do, it's our unwillingness to give up the things we do instead of pursuing that journey.

We spend hours scrolling on phones that tell us more about someone else's life than they do helping us discover our own. The irony is, the scrolling often tells us more about who someone isn't than who they are.

When we're scrolling, we KNOW there are things we could be doing to help us better discover who we are.

But we scroll anyway.

We spend months and years and even decades in relationships that hide us from life, not help us discover it. Relationships are designed to help everyone in them discover their best selves. When a relationship doesn't do that, it's standing in the way of you discovering you.

We don't keep that relationship because we don't know that and feel the angst in that. We keep it because, for many reasons, we can't let go of it.

We have many habits that we call 'bad' habits. Why do we call them bad? Usually it's because we sense and feel and know that they are things we're doing that stand in the way of us discovering every bit of who we are as humans.

I have personally had many bad habits in my life. Too many to count.

One of them has been alcohol. I don't think I've ever had an alcohol addiction, I've always been able to stop when I decide I'm going to stop. But what difference does the terminology make when you're in a period of deciding every day you don't want to stop?

Every time I have ever chosen to pick up alcohol, it's been fully aware that who I am about to be is the opposite of fighting to discover who I am. It's the opposite of fighting to become my best self.

So why did I make that choice anyway?

As Goggins put it, the work of discovering who we are often sucks. It's not often fun or enjoyable. Who wants to sit down and re-write the words of a text book for four hours? When won't being buzzed on alcohol sound better than that?

Never, is the answer.

Which brings us to the main point, I suppose. Discovering who we are - going ALL in on that discovery - that is not the easy choice. It is almost always the most sacrificial choice.

Many might disagree and call that pursuit selfish and self-centered, but here's the thing. We are our best for the people around us when we know who we are and we pour our all into being that person.

When we can go all in on being who we are, we inspire other people to go all in on being who they are. And people committed to being their best selves are usually at their best together.

Maybe there is no greater curiosity than wondering who someone's best self is, and then getting committed to helping them discover that person. Because that journey is hard. It is sacrificial. It does suck.

It does require support and encouragement.

I look around and see many of us avoiding the hard work of that journey of discovering ourselves. We're avoiding the sacrifices and the giving things up. But what it does not appear we are avoiding as a result of that is hard lives.

It would appear that either way we go, life is hard.

So we might as well invest as much of the hard as we can in ourselves.

Maybe, as we start 2024, while considering things we're going to take on this year to add to who we are, maybe we consider letting a few things go.

Maybe the best parts of ourselves are already here and we're just refusing to go discover them.

There is no greater gift than discovering you.

Make that discovery this year.