I was asked a question at some point in the last year: "When you were young, what did you think you'd be when you were older?", and all I could really think of to say was that I thought I'd be more than I have turned out to be.More what, exactly, I don't know. It's hard to say for sure. More important, more well-liked, more successful, more interesting? All of it, I guess.
In the book The Happiness Project it says (paraphrasing here) that the more components you have in the way you define yourself the happier you will be. That when you are defined by one thing or by very few things, the more threatened you feel when one of those things is, well, threatened.
This strikes a chord in me. It reminded me immediately of the question about what I thought I'd be when I grew up. I still haven't quite figured that out but I know it's not a race and there isn't anyone I'm competing against. I've defined myself mostly by my relationships with other people, and the things that I do. I'm not sure that that is the wrong way to go about it, but I am ready to try or learn something new to add to my self-definition.
Now. What is it going to be? Stay tuned...
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