Who are you, actually?

I spoke to a client last week and the topic of conversation was "Let's remove calorie tracking because it's getting in the way of you being yourself."
Fast forward 72 hours and an old friend of mine posted on his IG stories that he had been feeling, not himself, and had a lot of questions about who he is, what he wants to do with life, and just feeling a bit... lost.

Through the years, I've asked myself that very same question 'who am I?' and the answer always made me feel worse despite the fact spiritual gurus told me it would be enlightening af.

You need to ask a better question than 'who am I?'

*Trigger warning: depression, suicide*

*Homer helping us to achieve an a-piff-a-tree*

"Outside of work, I honestly have no idea who I am" I stopped talking because the next word out of my mouth would cause me to break down.
My therapist and I just sat in silence for the next 30 seconds waiting for someone to break the silence... He finally did.
"What's your backup plan if you left your current job?"

"I don't know, probably go into sales or some shit."
"Why's that?" he looked into his coffee mug, whirling it in a small circle.
"It'd be easy, people know what they want these days, plus I like talking to people."

I immediately knew what he was getting at, 4-months ago I'd told him that I got back into Personal Training on a promise I made to myself. "One more shot. If I'm not successful at the one job that's made me happy in all of these years, I'll save myself the hassle and end it now"

The backup plan 8 years ago was literally death.

"So things have improved then? Why's that?" the therapist had put his coffee down by this point and started writing notes on his laptop.

Whenever he wrote notes on his laptop I slumped back into the chair knowing that I'd given him something to fixate on.

I listed all the reasons that I had for wanting to get up in the morning and why things have improved, most of them revolved around my relationship, but after 15 minutes of saying all these positive things. The therapist just tilted his head slightly and looked into the corner of the room, then back to me...

"Is it more important that you know who you are or what makes you happy and gives you a purpose?"

My immediate defensive response was "yeah but from almost everything I've seen on social media from these people that are living their best life have all said you need to find who you are. So how can you be happy if you don't know who you are?"

Like a lawyer being called upon for closing statements, he shut his laptop and said "Well... things have improved drastically for you in the years you said you didn't know who you were. Do you feel that, if you stopped getting caught up in the idea that you need to know who you are before you can be happy, you'd be a lot less stressed and happier?"

I sat in uncomfortable silence as he looked up at the clock. Our session was ending.

"I believe most people find themselves when they stop looking so hard. I think for you, right now, it matters more about doing things that make you happy, that give you a purpose, and by doing those things you'll create a life for yourself that brings joy, money, and everything you've ever said you wanted...

... it's worked so far."

We exchanged pleasantries and called it a day. Booked in for the next session.

On the way home I was thinking about the question...

I came to the conclusion based on all the other sessions we had that he was right. It was better that I focus on doing the things that have brought me joy so far and keep doing that for as long as I can.

My identity and who I am will shift as time goes on... Father of... Husband to... Owner of... Works as a... it doesn't matter to me.

As long as I have a reason to get up in the morning, I'll be happy.