The Narrative of Identity

Between 1996 and early 2004 I was enrolled in a doctoral program and working on it part-time while I worked. My dissertation topic was "The Reconstruction of Masculine Identity in Midlife." I didn't finish, even though most of my research was completed because I was out of work and not prepared to pay another $15,000 for my last year, maybe more, and deal with the ever increasing bureaucracy of the program. I'd already lost six months early in my research when the chair of the committee that approved research plans delayed me because she couldn't be bothered to look up or ask a fellow faculty member what the term "bricolage" meant. It felt like throwing money away at a time I could ill afford it, and I do regret not finishing.

Not that it would have been civilization altering research or anything remotely like it. But I learned a lot and have taken away that value.

Basically it is this: to a very large extent, we are who we say we are. We are our narrative of ourselves. This is neither new nor earth shattering, but it is something that we don't have much in our consciousness.

A lot of the ubiquitous self-help literature and the human potential movement says something like this but they have it off a bit. The implication they like to forward is that you can declare something you want to be and then that will somehow magically "manifest" itself in your life. Okay, so let's see. "I declare that I am the world's greatest brain surgeon!" You betcha!

You are who you say you are, but that includes the subtext. So if you say out loud that you are a courageous man of integrity and underneath know that you are a timid lying weasel, well guess what shows up. If what you declare bears no relation to how you feel and think in the quiet of your mind, it isn't going to count for much in the narrative, which will include the subtext, like it or not.

Having done my own hours in 12 step work and various human potential and self-development workshops, I have to admit to making affirmations and doing all the stuff despite a certain skepticism. And, yes, it was helpful to me to get "out of my stinking thinking." But also true was that I couldn't will myself rich or a brain surgeon.

It is useful to look at one's own narrative of self and to see what can be cleaned up about it. Some aspiration as well as honesty doesn't hurt either, but you might check out what the subtext is. It can carry a lot of weight.