Questioning Identity

Doesn't everyone go through a phase at some point in their life where they question their identity? It's a pivotal experience, enabling you to define who you are. This has been a topic of mind recently and one possible idea I'm theorizing is centered on the benefits of having many of these moments where we question our identity. Each new experience allows us to evolve and grow. I'm drawing on a few experience that have all helped me reach this conclusion. A few of them are fasting, watching American Beauty, The End of Suburbia and most recently Into the Wild, taking a few buddhist meditation classes, reading Dawkins' The God Delusion and having some good discussions on the topic. Paraphrasing a quote from Into the Wild, "the 21st century man is defined by the perception of the 20th century career man." Profession and consumption too often become intertwined possessions become part of identity.

Deliberate Living: Conscious attention to the basics of life, and a constant attention to your immediate environment and its concerns, example-> A job, a task, a book; anything requiring efficient concentration (Circumstance has no value. It is how one relates to a situation that has value. All true meaning resides in the personal relationship to a phenomenon, what it means to you).

--McCandless