Dear Tristan: you are not what you do

Dear Tristan,

A few years ago (about eight, actually), as I was finishing up college, my body started acting really strange. I was tired all the time, so I tried getting more sleep at night – up to 12 hours. No matter how much sleep I got, I was tired. Over the next year, lots of symptoms started to appear: multiple headaches a day, extreme exhaustion, nausea, panic attacks, complete lethargy. I didn’t know what was happening to me. I thought I just needed to take better care of myself. I’m a determined person, a person who commuted an hour each way to college while living at home, which required getting up at 5 am every day. A person who got a 4.0 GPA all 4 years of college while spending hours practicing violin and rehearsing. In high school and college, I was a “doer.”

It took three years after graduating from college for me to admit something was actually wrong with me. A few months after your dad and I got married, I saw my first doctor (it took five before I found one who knew how to help me get better.) I was diagnosed with hypothyroidism and later, adrenal insufficiency. It turned out almost every hormone in my body was out of whack.

Suddenly I went from a doer to someone who couldn’t do very much. My job – teaching violin lessons for about 15 hours a week – stayed. Everything else had to go, or at the very least, wait.

I stopped doing. And in the stopping doing, I had to discover who I really was.

You see, our culture tells us that we are what we do. “I’m a violinist.” “I’m an engineer.” “I’m a stay-at-home mom.”

We also use what other people do (or don’t do) to categorize and judge them. “He’s a drug addict.” “She does nothing but party.” “He’s lazy.” “She’s a slob.”

If you listen to our culture, you will learn that what you do – or don’t do – defines you. I hope you learn to tune those voices out.

You see, identity – who you are – is not what you do (or don’t do.) You are born into the world as yourself, a person, before you ever do (or don’t do) anything of note. You are not even seven months old, yet already are yourself. You are a person with your own personality. You are curious, determined, and sometimes easily frustrated.

What saddens me is that in some ways you are more yourself today than you will be in ten years or twenty years, because no one can take identity away from a baby. You are who you are. But as you get older, almost everyone – from “the culture” at large to people in specific – will try to take away your identity or give you a new one.

Most of the time this new identity will be based on what you do (or don’t do.) If you do things people approve of, you will be a “good” person. If you do things people don’t approve of, they will likely label you as a “bad” or “shallow” person. You will be liked or disliked based on your doing rather than who you are. If you’re not aware of this, you too may come to define yourself by what you do, and your confidence in who you are will fluctuate day-to-day based on your performance.

I hope, somehow, that as your mom I’m able to give you something deeper and more lasting than the cultural message about identity being tied up in doing. I hope that my love for you -  for YOU (not for what you do, not because you’re “good”, not because you’re “helpful”, but because you are YOU) will always be apparent to you and will give you the freedom to discover all the aspects of who you are. I hope that I will always tell you that you are YOU, not someone else, not a reflection of me. And that no matter what you do, I love you. You are not what you do, so even if you make the worst choices imaginable (of course I hope you won’t) – it won’t affect my love for you. Because you are not what you do, nothing you can do can make me love you more…and nothing you can do can make me love you less.

love,
mama

other letters in this series:
on failing to live up to ideals
on curiosity
on intrinsic motivation (and why we won’t do sticker charts)
on disagreements and choosing a different path
on being open
Daddy’s letters:

I love you
I’m sorry
Be Yourself
Not All It’s Cracked Up to Be
Be Powerful
Be…just be