place; I have broken off from my family and my close-knit community in college, and I’m on my own in the real world. What is my role? I’m not a student; I’m not a spouse; I’m not a parent. . . . I’m just whoever I make myself to be. This is both freeing and frightening.”
Industrial engineer, 25, single and hate it, Minnesota
In the Basic stage, we often cling to our roles and use them to define ourselves: “I am a nursing student, a son, a waitress, an engineer, an alumnus, a girlfriend, an athlete.” We also frequently identify ourselves by our characteristics and desires, by our likes and dislikes: “I play soccer, I love music, I’m a redhead, I care about the environment.” This is natural. For two decades others have labeled us and identified us in these ways, and we are only just figuring out what we think of ourselves.
PARDON MY DUST: UNDER CONSTRUCTION
Growing up, we are classified and distinguished by our gender, hobbies, academic interests, socioeconomic status, and so on. From elementary school onward, our abilities and activities are the stuff of dinner conversations, and our characteristics and interests often collect into an easily recognized type or “brand.” Perhaps you were the funny hyperactive performer, or the easygoing athletic friend, or the introverted grade-A student. In the Basic stage, our labels are usually still stuck to us; although we may begin to feel the urge to pull them off, we aren’t quite sure how yet.
“It’s hard to separate myself from my parents’ reassurance of who I am. Even though I am independent, I still seek their approval and opinion.”
Medical school student, 24, serious relationship, Michigan
We’ve come to rely on our “brand,” no matter how badly it may seem to fit or how much we dislike it. It’s the basis for the approval and feedback we’ve always gotten from our parents, teachers, and peers. When we describe ourselves, we may continue to regurgitate this external feedback, reinforcing it at the very same time that we may want to undo it. Growing up, intelligence was my most externally reinforced characteristic, so I was always either “smart” (positive) or “a goody-goody/nerd” (negative).
During the Basic stage, it’s common to experience a lot of confusion and self-doubt. We tend to engage in a lot of comparison with others, and more than ever our self-worth or confidence may rise or fall based on what others think. We pursue compliments like candy, while criticism is hard to handle, making us defensive on the outside and very upset on the inside. It can be hard to distinguish our authentic self from our “brand,” and to reconcile our “good” attributes (those that earn praise) with our “bad” (those that are criticized or considered weak). Twenty somethings can get caught up in a duality of thinking that is hard to shake. In some contexts, “smart” is good, but in others it’s bad — and so we end up loving and hating being “smart” at the same time. Society doesn’t help. For instance, when job hunting, we are constantly being asked, “What are your strengths and weaknesses? Tell me about your accomplishments.” Since we are supposed to “accentuate the positive,” we hide, judge, and shame the things we don’t like about ourselves, hoping we can either change them, hide them, or eventually grow out of them.
“STRANGER IN THE MIRROR” by Phil, 22
DECLARATION: I’m anxious because I don’t know who I am,and until I do, I don’t know where I’m going.
I stood among peers wearing suits and ties, wineglass in hand, detached from the piano music and the sputtering jokes and conversations, hand shaking. The event was my first alumni gathering only two months after my college graduation. I recognized no one, and I made no attempt to try. Instead, I went in the men’s room and tried to understand who that person was I was looking at in the mirror.
I won’t be ridiculous — I knew it was my face. But the face, to me, was that of quiet desperation. This desperation had no single cause, but rather it seemed to be a concentration of causes. The stress from overloaded course schedules, the self-doubt from peer criticism in the classroom, the loneliness stemming from nagging shyness, insecurity, and parents whom I could never seem to please. But most prominently, my anxiety was not only over lack of understanding of who I was but where I was going.
At eighteen I wanted to be a screenwriter-filmmaker like Oliver Stone, so I majored in English and creative writing with a naive yearning for fame, attention, and praise. I never told my parents this dream because I doubted they would ever support me. When they found out my major, I could hear them whisper in the living room their doubts and their lack of faith in my career direction. So, with encouragement, rather insistence, from them along with my best friend, I added accounting as a second major.
The extra major didn’t allow me to take a single summer off, participate in-depth with any student organizations, socialize regularly, or give me the time to practice for the driver’s license my parents discouraged me from getting when I was sixteen. The workload became daunting, and I felt rushed and overloaded practically every quarter.
“I want to make it on my own, be independent from my family, be debt-free, happy, and successful. But I just don’t think I have enough life experience yet to know who I am, and I don’t think it’s realistic to expect myself to have it all figured out right now. But it’s hard not to compare myself to other people my age who do seem to know exactly who they are.”
School secretary, 23, serious relationship, Oregon
But in my senior year, I knew I wasn’t good at accounting and I was miserable. After a horrible quarter, I switched to the manageable but no more fulfilling marketing program. My grades staggered and so did my confidence. Even worse, the extra load and switch in majors diluted my concentration on my writing. I wasn’t reading novels, writing on a daily basis, or watching acclaimed films — the activities I believed made good writers and filmmakers. As a result, an inferiority complex developed. Before I knew it, I was thinking about law school as Plan B. I figured a Juris Doctor would be good enough to net me a form of the prestige, distinction, and wealth I desired.
This festive evening of mingling with strangers in the dinner hall, and me staring blankly at myself in the mirror, was also the night before I was emailed my LSAT score. But I wasn’t looking forward to finding out, and I probably wasn’t going to law school, because despite the six straight months of preparation, and multiple aborted attempts, I once again believed I choked under the pressure of the real thing.
I am missing something anyone with a sense of direction possesses: faith and confidence in oneself. But how can I possess these when I don’t know who I am?
After emerging from the restroom, I scanned the room for company. I drifted from gathering to gathering, searching for someone as confused as I was. I am lonely, sexually frustrated, insecure, shy, detached, discouraged, and fearful for the future. I have this feeling like a clock is ticking.
I don’t know how long I’ll feel this way about life. I’ve heard so many people tell me that this stage of life is just a beginning and it always works out eventually. Career counselors and parents tell me that I’m just in a phase, but oversimplifying these tangles of self-doubt and loneliness is easy for them when it’s my life and not theirs. But if this is a phase, a temporary time of confusion, when does it end?
If you are still in the Basic stage on the Self-Awareness Continuum, you can probably relate to Phil’s level of frustration over not knowing who he is. This ambiguous, uncertain sense of self feels like a big roadblock, and leads to frustration and panic. Trust that it is a phase that you will evolve out of — and the more self-accepting you are of exactly who and where you are, the faster this phase will end. Cultivate compassion for yourself while you are in this process of self-discovery; consider yourself “under construction.” You are more than what you do or have. The emotional quagmire of this stage dissolves as you learn what makes you you — independent