The Heroic Journey of Personal Transformation Begins with Disappointment
Any heroic journey begins with the realization that reality is not how the idealist mind, for some unexplored reason, feels that it should be. From that initial awareness, countless unknown and attractive possibilities lying just outside what is familiar branch outward.
The question of the nature of one's own identity is one of the most ordinary questions in the world, yet few of those who ask it ever realize how much a meaningful answer would really matter. People are accustomed to only superficial responses that serve no function except to put into words the most basic personal descriptors about themselves. Because of this, it’s easy to forget that the stories we tell ourselves about who we are represent only a fraction of the ways we could ever arrange ourselves. Our answers are limited to what we have so far been able to experience of our own nature and potential.
I’ve known all my life that the path the world would choose for me could never satisfy me, but I couldn’t see any viable alternatives until I took steps to begin exploring the world without a plan or preconceptions of how my life was supposed to go. So, from 18, I made it my mission to explore as much of the world as I could on my own terms so I could define my own destiny independently of the past I knew and the way I was raised.
Through one path or another, we all have no choice but to live out the destiny we set for ourselves through our recurring self-narration. But what defines us at our core is not set by the place we were born, the way we were raised, or the mundane activities that pilfer our time. If you fear what you’ll find when you peer inside yourself, you’ll linger in the safety of expectation. Such a person dies never knowing who he really is and what he could have accomplished had he had the courage to act on his own interests.
Meaningful self-conception only begins with a sense of distinction from the rest of society. People seek out complementary differentiation. The other people they know form the boundaries to their uniqueness. They find definition through comparison to an arbitrary other, and, without meaningful social distinction, they feel formless and devoid of worth. This crippling need to affirm identity via society is a source of lifelong suffering. Without constant reiteration of who the wandering person is supposed to be in the world, the story everyone agrees to tell about him slowly fades. In its place, a void remains to be filled by dominant social influence.
Only if we are determined, if we have allowed ourselves to become so disappointed that no other choice remains but to purge our inauthentic self-conceptions, can we explore what we will become without a lingering past to define us.
As an ordinary mind never ponders the truth of its own identity for longer than an occasional clear and inspired moment, the world is quick to offer a thousand easy avenues through which to evade introspection when it calls. Since we have no external reasons to change ourselves once any particular situational agony is over, we may never come to know our own deep sorrow, ambition, or nagging drive to move against the impassible.
Only if we’re determined, if we’ve allowed ourselves to become so disappointed that no other choice remains but to purge our inauthentic self-conceptions, can we explore what we’ll become without a lingering past to define us. The longer we wait, the more resistance there will be for any emerging personality traits to encounter. The people who know us to be a certain way may feel betrayed and cheated by our sudden transformations. We may even face resistance from our own minds when the way we’re used to thinking about ourselves attempts to defend itself from annihilation.
Yet, suppose we survive these social and psychological ordeals. In that case, it is possible for us to embrace the entire range of what we can become, delving deeper into what is valuable and discarding all the rest. Every latent interest yields possibilities to develop throughout our lives. If we unravel the restraints we know about ourselves, we can arrive at many contextual identities to embody. Then we will begin to discover what matters to us and defines us on our own time and in our own way.
On my path, as I traveled around the world throughout my 20s, I made it a conscious goal to push myself to explore increasingly difficult nations and cultures that would challenge the values I was rapidly uncovering within myself. The most difficult places for me were those that wielded extreme authoritarian control over the populace and stifled their ability to think and act independently. I never knew how pervasive the subjugation of individual autonomy could be until I saw with my own eyes how certain governments controlled what information was approved or accessible to their populaces.
You can't know what you really are until you've tried to become more than what you know yourself to be.
So, you must develop the courage to do something that scares you, something you believe may even destroy the you that you know, something that seems entirely antagonistic to the identity you've assumed and utterly outside your limitations. Only when you survive the seemingly impossible do you enhance your understanding of the breadth of your own existence. Revel in small victories for a time, and then pursue the impossible once more.
Counterintuitively, growth often begins with removal and construction with deconstruction. Creation requires deletion. You must, in a sense, kill your old self before you can become your new self. So, in every moment, be willing to deconstruct the self-conceptions that prevail in your mind. Follow that thread of inquiry until the unrealized possibilities weigh heavily upon your soul. Then, no matter the cost, press on and embody the parts of yourself for which emergence is painfully overdue.
Begin by removing all but what is absolutely necessary from your ongoing self-reflection.
Reduce everything in your emotional awareness to its simplest possible state. Release any demands from your attention that do not require your conscious input. Observe what remains. Rest there until something real beckons your motion once more. Don’t turn away from the emptiness that appears when there’s no emergency to stamp out or pressing pain to remedy. See what becomes of your thoughts when there’s nothing to tell you what to do or become.
Waste no energy upholding outdated structures or values solely because you are accustomed to their bounding influence.
This was the most important lesson I learned from struggling to carve out my own path in a world that never made it easy for me. When you’re finally free from the confines of your traditional self, your society will be forced to choose how it will adjust to the effects of your now-expanded boundaries. The portion of reality you once called home may now see you a foreign invader adorning a once-familiar face. That is the risk you take when you break with your past for the sake of what your future may hold. Get on the path as early as you can, while there is time to act, and you have the strength to initiate the changes required by heroism.
