About : "Identity"

I really wanna write about identity. Since it kinda disturbs me recently. I haven’t done a research about this topic and of course i’m not the expert one. I just ever read an article from Mark Manson’s blog about “diversifying ur identity” (I forget the exact title. Just go to his blog and search it there. It is so good, seriously). That changes my perspective. But this time i don’t want to limit the writing about that phrase. I wanna share more how i feel towards “identity”. It will be a self reminder for me as well in the future.

What is identity? I think it’s more than name, age, gender, religion, and so on. But it’s like something that everyone sees on you, whatever if it’s physically or not. It makes you different from others, which is why i’m so amazed with Allah who creates us.

Sometimes without realizing or not, u create ur own identity with ur behavior, appearance, how u talk and make a conversation, even write a status in  ur social media. For example. In my social media, i’d like to post my reading update or review. It makes people recognizing me as a bookworm, can’t stop studying, can’t have fun—which it's actually not. I still live my life like others. However because i j post my reading activity and choose to not post picture when i hang out with my friend, people think like that. Not everyone thinks that way. I know. But most of them, yes, bcs they told me so.

Actually, i feel okay because reading is my hobby and it is a good thing. But then my past self felt that i wanted my friend thinking that i can have fun as well. So i posted every fun thing in the story section of my social media. Funny video, meme, and etc. I did it many times until i felt wrong. Why do i have to do something that i don’t wanna do in order to change the way people think of me? I felt ridiculous to my self. On one side i thought that was my fault to show something on social media that can make people assumption. But on the other side, i also feel that we can’t define someone through their social media. Of course everyone just want to share a little part of themselves which is mostly good things.

But you know, it happens naturally. I also admit when i look my friends always travelling to somewhere with their family, i suppose them as “rich people’s children”. If we meet then i’ll say in my heart “ah, she is rich. She must be blablabla”. That’s unhealthy thought. I wanna get rid of it but it happens naturally. U have ur own version of other’s identity. It depends on the way you think. If i point out my friend who has travel around the world (for example) has hard-working parents, then i’ll change my mindset. “His parents must be hard-working people. Someday i’ll be like them, going for a vacation with my children”. It’s better, right?.

Not only that, our actions on social media which makes our new identity, sometime give pressure to ourselves. Based on my experience, i didn’t have any problem if people assume me that i like reading. Because it sounds good (it doesn’t mean technically u’re very intelligent or kinda genius, but u know what i mean). But at some point when i stop reading—because i don’t have money to buy new book or i have a lot of tasks from school—i feel empty. I feel like i lose my identity, maybe?

It probably sounds exaggerating. So let me tell you something i listened from a podcast about Mark Manson’s book. He said that losing identity is real. There was an athlete—i’m not sure what kind of athlete—that chose to resign from his career. If i’m not mistaken, it happened because he was too old. Not long after his resign, he committed suicide. He didn’t know what he had to do, lost the routine as an athlete, and so on. This incident is not only happen once. Many cases happened because people feel this identity crisis. That’s why Mark Manson suggests us to diversify our identity. If you are a CEO maybe, then sometime do your hobby like playing guitar, writing novel, etc. Be an expert on it. Because if you lose ur company or one of ur skill, u won’t fall into sadness too deep. From that, i suggest you to not let ur self post everything on social media, because more often you post the same thing, it can be  ur new identity and u can get pressure if it’s not the real version of you.

So, i can’t express my feelings? Doesn’t it the use of social media? 

U can be what u want to be. But, just be "the real you".

However, we can make a favor towards this kind of people assumption. I learn it from a book by James Clear “Atomic Habits”. If u want to make a new good habit, u can post that activity on social media. Doesn’t it make people assume i’m good at that? Yeah, that’s the point. By showing to others that you’re good at it, it can be ur new identity. Automatically, u’ll be forced to do a new habit. I can’t say whether it’s effective or not. But i believe if it has become part of ur identity, u’ll naturally won’t let it go.