I was with a good friend last night and we had a couple of breakthrough revelations here and there. I thought I’d share them here before I forget any of it. There was drinking involved, so I’ll be sharing what I remember.
We talked about politics, of all things. I won’t go through how we progressed in the conversation but I will share, one thing I do remember is the absolute importance of how we need to know our identity. We need to know who we are as Filipinos, and we need to be confident about it… Well, not necessarily confident but saturated in it, the same way we would practice any other skill: moving from unconscious incompetence, to conscious incompetence, to conscious competence, and finally, to unconscious competence. I believe that the motivation behind this is for us to snap out of our insecurities – until we arrive at such a point where we, not only as individuals, but as a nation, would understand who we are, then it would certainly help us in uniting and achieving things we wouldn’t even dream of on our own.
If we don’t know our identity, we’re automatically someone else’s identity. We’re being bombarded by media from other countries who project their identities on us. If they aren’t projecting their identities, it’s the complete opposite – they’re projecting their lack of identity, in the form of angst and Lord knows how else. I’m not necessarily saying that it’s bad for us to take things here and there from other cultures and countries to supplement to who we are, but if we’re out to express ourselves in a manner as if to copy what other nations are doing, then it’s an insult to our existence, an offense to our being.
And speaking of our existence, another thing revealed to me: We would be insulting ourselves, our beings if we insisted on finding in a partner what we look for in a friend. I was told straight up by my friend that we would do well to uphold our standards for friends, but we influence, match and test our standards – no, even deeper, our IDENTITY – on the partner we commit to be with. That was the big thing I got from that evening. I’m making sure I put that on record.
It ties together, no? First we talked about identity, and then we talk about standards. And that’s the thing, I guess – we need to be settled with who we are before we figure out what we want. Identity is greater than standards. Or rather, identity takes priority over standards. Standards are birthed from identity, but not the other way around. The problem I see with some people I know is that they tend to tweak their standards with the intent of projecting their identity – as if to ‘edit’ how other people see them by way of going out of their way to intentionally tell anyone and everyone who listens to them about the standards they have.
Unfortunately, people generally see through people who go for this sort of ‘strategy’. No, I’m thinking right now, the more we delve into our identity, the more we are honest with ourselves, and the more our standards fit who we are.
The good news is that those of us who are in Christ have the freedom of learning about how we are built and how we move, as well as other facets of our being. We’re free, without fear of condemnation that we’re too narcissistic, selfish, and/or self-centered, to learn more of how God built us specifically. Christ’s finished work has guaranteed that there would be no reason for us to fear to serve the need of intentionally or unintentionally learning our personality and our being.
And I understand that we wouldn’t necessarily be so willing to go through the details of how to go about that ourselves – There’s always the human margin of error that ensures that there would be inaccuracies along the way. But I guess I’m here to remind you (and actually, more myself) of Scripture – specifically, when the Apostle James tells us in his Epistle, that whoever had if we would want wisdom (and therefore, proper guidance in figuring ourselves out), then all we need to do is to ask, and to ask in faith. We can run to the throne of grace for, of all things, wisdom and revelation as to who we are and what else can be done.
On my part, I seem to be figuring things out by going hard on things that I want to do – or, I want to start figuring things out that way, anyway. The goal is to get a thousand steps in the pocket before lunch, and I would be doing weight training obviously before or after said steps. The goal is also to get my 1000 words done in the morning. What I used to do when I couldn’t shake certain thoughts out of my head was to workout until exhaustion.. Now, I do what I do, not to remove any lingering thoughts, more really, more of to dig up any thoughts in my psyche that need to be brought to surface to
I also am aiming to figure things out for myself and my identity by going out more (going out more without the car, that is – gas is so expensive), and interacting with more and more people – this isn’t just to make friends, but to just continue to practice and apply my notions on social interaction.. and in the process, any revelations that do come by this way are just the icing on the cake.
Perhaps there are certain standards to figuring out our identity – but I don’t think there’s a more effective ‘standard’ – it’s actually more of a shortcut than anything else – it’s really just asking the One who made us, committing all the questions we have in mind, as well as anything that lies beneath the surface. Who better to know all there is to know about us, than the Creator Himself?
Friends, it’s another week ahead, and all I have to say for all of us this far down is just that we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we don’t come to our God every now and then to help us in our discoveries and adventures. I pray we all have a good, productive and fantastic week ahead. I apologize in advance – my streak of writing each day has been broken lots of times, but rest assured that I do plan on finishing 365 days of 1000 words a day.
Again, God bless us all, and have a good week ahead.
JB's Personal Brain Defragmenter 
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