WHO ARE YOU?

Do you recognize yourself in the mirror?

The true perfection of man lies not in what man has, but in what man is.

— Oscar Wilde

For the past few weeks in my personal life, I've been looking at so many things through the eyes of my values, and after last night at the book club where we discussed at lengths about the subject matter while reviewing our book of the month, I thought it was time I wrote to you about values.

The "value" here doesn't mean "what something or someone is worth", even though it is also a subset of what I will be describing. The value in this context is simply what your life is lived through and defined by.

It has been called a lot of things over the years, and many people still devise new words for it. Some call it beliefs, some call it views, some call it personality, some call it core values, some call it purpose, some call it your inner core, your centre, your morals, your convictions, your identity, and so on, but it all means one simple thing, an answer to one question; who are you?

When I put it this way, it becomes shocking that a lot of people don't have personal values they live by. They don't have clearly defined personal values, boundaries, lines they won't cross, things they won't do or say.

They are literally swayed by everything and anything, so when they are asked who they are, they cannot answer the question because they have long lost themselves amidst the craze of fitting into the values of every single person they meet and every place they go.

What kind of living is this? What kind of life is it if you have no clearly defined personal values and so you can conform into anything? What kind of life is it if you have zero boundaries as a result of not having articulated your values, and as a result, anybody and anything can enter your inner core, influence you and make you into something you're not? The even more important question is this, how will you know who you are not when you haven't clearly defined who you are?

WHO ARE YOU?

Have you formed beliefs that you hold strongly with complete resolve? Where did you get them from? How do they affect you? Are they shaping you into the person you truly believe in your gut that you should be?

Have you clearly defined boundaries that you will never cross as a person? If not, it means you haven't clearly defined your personal values and it's best you begin right now.

The reason why many people fall flat and succumb to the pressure of peers is because they haven't properly defined what their identity is with utmost conviction. They do not know who they are, and so, in order to be accepted, in order to get a sense of community everywhere they go, they conform into the values of that community. Only that, if you haven't defined your individual values, you'd never truly belong anywhere. If you haven't identified who you are as a person, you would never know where you belong.

What will then happen is that you'd start picking pieces everywhere you go, and one day, when you look into the mirror, you won't even recognize what you are seeing, because you would have lived many contrary lives, conformed to many people, you'd have been ransacked like a ranch that has been torn through by wild horses because it had no boundaries.

WHO ARE YOU?

What will you not do? What lines will you never cross simply because they go against everything you stand for? What do you stand for? What will you hold on to come rain or shine? What will you believe in even when all odds are stacked up against you? What will you not do even when it looks like everyone is doing it? What won't be normal to you even if it becomes the new normal?

It is only when you define these things that you will know who should have access to your life, who you call friends, who you partner with, who you do business with, and who you let influence you. It is only when you identify your personal values that you begin to get a clear sense of who you are, and what you should be doing with your life.

If you reach the end of this newsletter and you are asking how you can find who you are, go back to the beginning of this newsletter and painstakingly answer every question that you read through. It'll be a good place to start, and it's important to state that it is never too late to start.

Remember that age old saying: "Stand for nothing, and fall for everything."

To your growth,

Abiola Okunsanya,

Handzinspired ✨