Pain and Identity
Today is a day many of us (if you are in the US) are celebrating freedom. And while most of us don’t fear a real external threat, many of us still do not feel as though we are free. We feel trapped by a story.
Divorced.
Fired.
Passed over.
Failed.
Single.
In debt.
Unhealthy.
The version of ourselves we wish we could undo. And eventually, what happened became who we are.
That is not freedom.
Every one of us has pain that is part of our story. And the temptation is to make that pain your identity. That the mistake or situation is who you are. That is an impossible weight to carry. And it prevents growth.
You can’t succeed if you are a failure.
But you can succeed if you have failed.
See the difference? When we wear our pain as our identity, it drives what we do. Being informs doing. But when it is simply part of our story instead of the title of our story, it loses its power. The lessons are still there, but the weight isn’t.
Picture a normal workday. You walk in to an email from a client ending the partnership. Then you sit through a meeting about what a strong month the team just had. A text from your wife lands, excited about date night. Then you're back in a room mapping out the pitch for a big new client.
You wouldn't call that a bad day. There was a bad moment in it. It was painful and has real impact, but one moment doesn't make the day. Same with you. One moment doesn't make you.
You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated. In fact, it may be necessary to encounter the defeats, so you can know who you are, what you can rise from, how you can still come out of it.
Your pain is a part of your story but it is not your identity. Others may try to define you by that moment, but you don’t have to. Freedom is not pretending the past did not happen. It is refusing to let the past decide who you are allowed to become.
Learn from the it. Don’t try and carry it into your future.
Live above the line.
For you,
Kevin
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