Get to Know Me

Truly I used to love the notion that I am my will. Very powerful. It even helped me quit smoking. By equating myself with my choices I realized that when I chose poorly, I was my choice. What else could I be if not the guy reaching for the smoke? That “definition” of me worked for quite a while.

But, although it helped me define MYSELF, it didn’t help me define others. I could not know their will. Nor did it familiarize me with others.

Then I heard someone ask the rhetorical, “What am I, if not my word?”

It seemed profound to me. It said that an individual is bigger than the private act of choosing. It added interpersonal accountability to the equation. It offers: you can define me by my word—when I give it, it is I; when I fulfill it, that was me.

But ultimately I found myself mistrusting the person I heard it from. Sure, I could see that, from his perspective, his “being” was in his choices. And, from my perspective, he lived by his word. But I sensed a hole in the rhetoric. No, I couldn’t identify him by his word.

So I sought another way to indicate one’s identity to others: Who am I, if not my word and my actions? THAT’s the ticket, I thought -- accountability for behaviours that are unrelated to commitments made or kept.

How nice.

But then you’ve got your budding con artist Eddie Haskell Jr. from the “Leave it to Beaver” show. “Oh, hello, Mrs. Cleaver. I’ll be GLAD to carry those groceries into your house.” Young Mr. Haskell's little gesture might be noble, but who knows the real motive?

So here it is, my new identity formula, for oneself, and to offer others: I am my will, my word, and my consequences.