Personal Myths, Identities, Roles: Multiples or Just One?
As I was looking at my short- to long-term goals last week, I got onto the idea of identity and noticed I was basing my decisions upon a mix of them.
There are also roles I want to play, and I was associating some of those with my goals when perhaps I would have been better off going with a core identity.
Also, I have core personal myths that are consciously, and at other times relatively unconsciously, guiding my decisions and behaviors.
So let’s unpack the difference between them a bit.
A role is meant to be a reflection of external doing. Not necessarily who you think you are or want to be, but a role you are fulfilling. It typically has social expectations attached to it and behaviors you are expected to perform.
Sometimes there is an expected appearance, too. Think of a doctor in a white lab coat. You see them in a restaurant kitchen cooking on the line. Or they are working as an attendant at the valet parking station.
Your mind is going to say, “What the what?”
In a laboratory, sure. In a patient clinic, absolutely. Behind the cash register at the local convenience store, well, that is going to be an odd encounter. Nothing wrong with it, but not the expected role congruency.
A personal myth is an internal narrative that guides the development of your identity (and character), either consciously, relatively unconsciously, or completely unconsciously. It can shape your destiny whether you know it or not.
The more you study your life experiences, dreams, active imagination, emotions, and the personal narratives operating in your mind (you think them, but you don’t say them), the more conscious you become of your personal myths. Then you can choose to identify with the myth or change it.
They also help explain your life so far.
Often they can provide you with a simple image that conveys a great deal of meaning in only a few words. For example, if I say I am like a turtle, you will probably know what that implies and much of what it means.
So what is an identity?
It depends on who you ask (pun intended).
“I contain multitudes,” Bob Dylan sings, and he’s pointing at this.
This is part of the reason why my preferred pronouns are we and us. But for some reason, I never seem to find them—or be allowed to use them—as a choice on the check-in sheet.
However, Erik Erikson is often referred to as an authoritative source for understanding identity. Erikson viewed it as a developmental process. You develop an internal, congruent sense of yourself that tells you who you are, your beliefs, your values, and your long-term goals.
Alright, Dr. Erikson, let’s use your idea and look at two of my long-term goals that I have been pursuing for the last few years.
One path leads me to what I have called a Back On Campus Lifestyle strategy.
The strategy is to create the conditions that help me flourish. It is based on one of the best years of my life, when things were all clicking into place for me. I was a student at the time, but later I adapted the framework to the idea of becoming a professor. Later still, I adapted it to how I might want to live a post-FIRE lifestyle. In that sense, I was moving toward becoming a lifestyle designer.
Student.
Professor.
Lifestyle Designer.
Are these roles or identities?
I would argue both, but Erikson would likely say these are roles.
However, if I am thinking of myself as a student, then I have a congruent sense of myself. My beliefs, values, and long-term goals are represented in that identity.
You, however, may look at me and say, “How can you be a student? You’re way too old. You’ve already got three graduate degrees. Grow up, for G’s sake.” That is You Thinking of me as playing a role.
And that’s fine—whether or not I care what you think about it. I can still identify as a student.
Then there is my other big path that I’ve referred to as being a Traveling Troubadour.
Same thing.
You can think of me as playing the role of a singer-songwriter, but for me it can also be an identity around which I shape my life.
Regardless, what I discovered—and I think I already knew but didn’t know how to state it—is that there is a lot of tension between these two visions for my long-term goals. How I approach one, the other, or both is shaped by the identity from which I center my life.
For my Back On Campus lifestyle strategy, I could have the identities of:
Dude Living a Back On Campus Post-FIRE Lifestyle
Student Living a Back On Campus Lifestyle
Professor on a Highway to Yeah Living a Back On Campus Lifestyle
As a musical performer, I could have the identities of:
Traveling Troubadour
Local Singer-Songwriter Living a Back On Campus Lifestyle
Venue Owner and/or Operator/Employee Who Also Plays and Writes Songs
I could keep going, but these are some of the major identities I have been considering—and even trying to live from—as I pursue my vision of an ideal post-FIRE life.
Are my values found in the identities? (Or roles, if you prefer.)
Ah, that was an interesting question to tackle this past week.
I took my top ten values, which I have shared in previous articles, and tried to match them with these various identities.
There is overlap between multiple values and identities, but the primary value associated with each identity seemed to be:
Student — Learning
Professor — Contribution
Lifestyle Designer — Simplicity
Traveling Troubadour — Adventure
Local Singer-Songwriter — Creative Expression
Venue Owner/Operator — Deep Human Connection
What about my other values?
If I wanted ultimate Freedom, what identity would I want to take on?
If I wanted to authentically become my truest self, what identity would I take on?
If I wanted Beauty and the Beloved to be at the center of my life, what identity would I take on?
If I wanted Fun in the Sun to be at the center of my life, what identity would I take on?
I am not sure, but this I do know.
If I wanted to Take On Me, I would be A-ha.
Ahhhh…
Ha!
I get it.
Everything flows from your identity, so what have you put at the center?
Jokes aside, what this helped me figure out this past week is that, at my core, my identity is probably best expressed as an Adventurer.
And my personal myths of Bilbo and Aragorn are definitely reflections of, explanations for, and perhaps even influences on that destiny to be an Adventurer, if I so choose.
Bilbo’s life opened up when he left on an adventure with Gandalf and the dwarves.
Aragorn’s adventure kicked into high gear when he agreed to wait for the hobbits at the Prancing Pony.
It was when they crossed the threshold into adventure that the story got really good, really fast.
Even though I associate my value of Adventure with a Traveling Troubadour identity, that does not mean it is the only role or goal influenced by choosing to identify as an Adventurer.
You see, when I went back and reviewed what I was actually doing during the year my Back On Campus lifestyle strategy was germinating, and tried to determine why it still resonates with me today, I had to conclude it was because Adventure was at the center of everything that happened that year.
I spent the year on an adventurous quest, and as a result, the world opened up to me for a time.
What will I do with this newfound insight?
I am not completely sure yet.
What I do know is that I need a new vision for my life of adventure.
I want to rethink all of my big dream goals and evaluate any additional One Hit Wonders from this identity.
I think it will provide a level of clarity I am currently missing.
But we will see.