Who Am I? What is my Purpose?

These two questions are often asked when we are in doubt with the life we are living and question its authenticity. These are important questions to ask and can help us come to understand what we need to know for a better life. Understanding the answers frees us from the mental prison of the Personal View.

In the Personal View the question “who am I?” is greatly influenced by family, friends and our cultural environ­ment. There are many personal identities available for us to assume.

We can define ourselves by skin color, gender, age, sex­ual preference, religion, family history, politics, material possessions, physical characteristics, education, jobs, personal interests, where we live, sports, the food we eat, what we drive and more.

We often join groups seeking confirmation of our personal identity. We compare ourselves and others by these narrow identities and they become our values. What we value is our identity. Friction arises which can lead to identity wars, small and large, from living rooms to school yards to battle fields, where different identities find themselves in conflict, unable to work, play or even live together.

It seems the only option is to struggle to protect personal identities by defending and confirming them.

In the Personal View our purpose is to get what we want. What we want is what we value, so what we value determines our personal identity and purpose. 

When we value how we look our purpose is to look good, when we value having more money our purpose is to get more money, when we value being liked by others our purpose is to become popular. 

Sometimes we lose confidence in our personal identity. We change our clothes, our hair color and styles, cars, jobs, what we eat, and friends, as we continue our search for what is missing. We become anxious and question our authenticity as our identity becomes fragile and things do not always work out the way we had hoped. This is the frustration of the Personal View which can lead us to ask “Who am I? And “What is my purpose in life?” 

In the Spiritual View our interest in expressing spiritual qualities is what we value and our personal identity becomes less and less important. Valuing and expressing spiritual qualities is then our identity and our purpose in life.

In the Spiritual View we are “spiritual beings” in the moments when we express spiritual qualities. When we value peace, we are peaceful; when we value clarity, we are clear; when we value gratitude we are grateful.

Our purpose in these moments is expressing these spiritual qualities, and in that moment it is our identity. So when we ask “Who am I?” and “What is my purpose in life?” we may be doubting our values and are no longer fulfilled by them.

A better question may be “What values am I expressing as my purpose in life, and what values would make my life better?” In the Spiritual View the answer is always valuing and expressing spiritual qualities. This is the purpose and the substance of a good life. The benefit of the Spiritual View is that moment to moment we have the mental freedom to choose our values, identity and purpose in life.