Here's why you should broaden the way you define who you are.
Choose one of the air molecules sitting outside your mouth right now, as if it's visible to the naked eye. Next, watch it closely over the next few seconds and tell me the moment it becomes an integral part of you. Ready?
Does it happen when your diaphragm creates a vacuum that pulls air into your lungs? Well, I'm not sure that the air changed substantially from when it was outside of your body, so let's keep going.
How about when it dives into the tiny capillaries then crosses into your bloodstream to travel through your body. On second thought, if a child swallows a coin, does it become the child?
Does it happen when the molecule combines with your food to create energy? Then it's at home in your body and essential for its functioning. That sounds convincing, except trillions of microbial organisms fit that same bill; they are also at home in your body and necessary for its functioning because you can't live without some of them.
Hopefully, you see the difficulty of defining yourself by identifying what makes you "unique" or what separates you from your environment. Instead, who you are is defined by your connections and relationships to everything else, which requires you to think more expansively and creatively about your role in the world.
For instance, my most defining role is a mom, but I have that role not because I'm separate from my five beautiful daughters but because they are a part of me and separate from me. They became unique individuals when they developed inside me and developed further outside but connected to me. And no matter what, they will remain connected to me through our memories, ensconced firmly in my memories and emotions. What makes me, ME as a mom, is bound to THEM.
And that truth makes the wisdom of the Golden Rule invaluable: Do unto others as you would have them do to you, which is the most ancient and universally applauded moral principle on earth.
Viktor Frankl had this to say after living in several concentration camps. "Being human always points, and is directed, to something, or someone, other than oneself—be it meaning to fulfill or another human being to encounter."
Life is richer when you dream bigger about your role and your meaning in life.
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