Authentic Self
When I originally started thinking about this post I made
the mistake of assuming it was going to be a lot easier than it is turning out
to be. There I go, breaking one of the agreements from the personal contract!
Lesson learned. This is in fact, an incredibly thought provoking post which seems
to open the flood gates in front of a considerable amount of emotion. If done
correctly there seems to be an astonishing amount of risk involved, a level of
vulnerability which I think most people rarely even consider approaching, let
alone blogging about for all the world to see. So here I go, diving head first
into it.
Personally, I find it extremely difficult to define the
authentic self. By placing this label on it, I feel as if we have been asked to
identify the very most singular definition we have of our self. This seems
rather limiting to me. I can’t honestly say that I believe I have one single
definable authentic self. I feel that we are ever evolving, changing from
situation to situation, person to person, moment to moment, and experience to
experience. I do believe we all have a core set of values; somewhat of a set of
guidelines by which we live our lives and do our best to adhere to in day to
day situations. I also believe that we cannot adhere to these guidelines every
single moment of our lives. What we would like to be our authentic self, and
what we do to live up to these expectations each and every moment can be
extremely different things. Actions speak louder than words as it were.
Further, I submit that these core principals, or guidelines
which we try to live by are not entirely our own. That is half the reason it
becomes so easy to stray from them from time to time. They can never truly be
our own so long as we reside in a civilized society and adhere to social norms
and the practices of those around us. Our idea of “right and wrong,” “good and
bad,” and all of our “should and should not’s,” have been ingrained in us by
our parents and teachers and those we have been raised by all of our lives. Our
idea of God and Heaven and Satan and Hell is generally defined by the religion
we have been raised to subscribe to. Few of our core concepts of self, have in
fact been developed, by ourselves.
Take for example, myself. From the moment I was born to the
moment I first set foot in a combat zone I had a pretty solid idea of what was
right and wrong. I like to think that I probably had a pretty good idea of who
my authentic self was, a fairly authentic American kid. I was, for the most
part, a happy go lucky guy. I didn’t necessarily subscribe to a religion but
had at least a basic faith in God. I was non-violent, I was fairly people
pleasing, and for the most part, did what was considered the “right thing” on a
daily basis. Most of what I did was based on what I had been taught to do and
came from a “happy” place within myself. For all intents and purposes, at this
point in my life I believe my authentic self was just who I mentioned earlier,
and American kid. Did I have me completely figured out back then? No, but isn’t
that part of who I was, and therefor part of my authentic self? I think so.
Then this whole big thing came to the forefront of America’s
attention, the War on Terror. I was at basic training when the towers were hit.
My Drill Sergeants were right on the money when they told us every single one
of us would play a role in the upcoming, and inevitable war. A few years later
their predictions proved right. I was in a combat zone. Suddenly my “authentic
self” became a whole new person. That happy go lucky American kid version of
me, I left him on the scorching sands of a desert half a world away. Never to
be brought home, never to grow up, never to fall in love, never to fall out of love.
The pre-war version of “me” lay dead, eviscerated by the actions one must adopt
to survive the rigors of combat.
Do the right thing, do unto others, love thy fellow man, do
no harm, don’t kill, have faith in God. These tenants which I held dear for so
much of my life, tossed out the window, replaced by a new set of “guidelines”
necessary for survival. OK, so I still held onto some of them, in a manner of
speaking. Do the right thing became never let your guard down, never let your
buddies down. Do unto others? Ha, well at least I wasn’t going to use a dull
meat cleaver to hack off the head of my enemy and have it displayed worldwide
through international media outlets. Love thy fellow man? That’s not how it
works in a kill or be killed situation. Don’t hurt or kill? Then get hurt or
get killed. Love and happiness are the last things a human being feels when they
find themselves in a situation where lives they care about are at stake and
they must defend them. God? I won't dwell on that, but let's say he became a fickle subject at best.
For six years these new tenants were my authentic self. When
I was not at war I was training for war or training others for war. At times I
was burying those brothers of mine who had fallen to the hand of war.
Everything I did and every act I committed solidified these tenants. So long as
there was a war on, I knew what I had to do to survive it, and knew how to
train others to survive it. My “authentic self” became a survivor, and time and
time again I tested and solidified my new identity and existence.
Once the wars were over, I once again developed a new “self-concept,”
this one was of confliction. An internal struggle began between who I wanted to
be, who I thought I had become, and who I was and they were ever at odds with
one another. My new authentic self was an incredibly depressed, broken, crazy
war Veteran. Even though I was not necessarily aware of the fact that the old “me”
had died, I was aware that there was little to no place for the new me back in
the civilized world. It nearly tore me apart, it drove me mad, and practically
consumed my life. You could say at this point my authentic self was unclear
even.
Now here I am, three years separated from the Military and
three and a half years separated from the last time my feet were squarely
planted in a combat zone. I’m still very much so in the infant stages of
learning to cope with the conflict that raged inside me for years. I will
not say that I am well on my path to recovery, I feel that would imply there is
a final solution to coming to terms with the four little letters that plague so
many of our American men and women. Truth be told, I don’t think Post Traumatic
Stress is something an individual can be “cured” of. I do however, strongly
believe that it can be managed, dealt with, and for the most part kept in
check. My newest, and most recent “authentic self” adheres to a whole new set
of tenants which I believe best define me. Some are of from that kid who never
came back from the sandbox, some are from that kid who did, and some are from
the person I am today.
In closing, I reaffirm my earlier theory, that our “authentic
self” is an ever changing, ever evolving, entity. For me to find, and stay in
touch with mine I have found that honesty is paramount. I have to first be
honest with myself about who I am, who I want to be, and who I was. I have to accept
that this life of mine is mine, no one else’s. To thine own self be true.
Finally, I share with you something I wrote for a Facebook post months ago:
What I do or don't do each day defines me; not what I have
done, those things are in the past and I cannot change them, all I can do is
learn from them. What I want to do and will do doesn't yet define me, it hasn't
happened yet. On the day I wake up and accomplish those goals, that's the day
they will become what I am doing, and that's the day they will define me.
