Who Am I ?

This post is not regarding any spiritual or psychological stuff. No matter how much I blabber about the universe and its origin, the truth is I'm a guy who has to figure out a hell lot of practical stuff. So let’s talk practically. I see many and many people who are identified with their cars or hairstyles or shoes they wear. When a person starts getting compliments or complaints about their looks, they start believing that that’s their identity. That’s a kind of identity we strongly believe in.

The other type of identity which I want to denote here is when people are known for their ideologies, for their support to a particular person, a group, or a religion. For example, people are talking a lot about categories according to people’s political ideology – left-wing or right-wing ideology.

The other kind of identity which is extremely common is diversification according to physical features like the color- fair or dark, height- tall or short, and many others.

Now let me tell you why the hell I’m talking about all this stuff. We have to discuss simple living/minimalism right? So let me put it like this.

The goal of this whole process of minimalism is nothing but actually knowing who actually you are. It’s all about knowing what is your actual identity? When you start your journey towards knowing your real self, you start realizing how less you need to live a happy, prosperous, and meaningful life. When you reach a little closer to your true self, you will start questioning yourself that what is the need to put your car in the ignition mode, when you can travel via bicycle?

Oh! But man, I have a six-figure salary, why the hell should I ride a bicycle? This question might appear in your mind. But who has created that norm that if you are successful, you can’t ride a bike?

When one gets a little closer to oneself these societal norms and pressure start dissolving. These questions also start dissolving. We are born in a free nation and I think everyone here has a right to live themselves as per their will. There is no harm in traveling through public transport instead of traveling alone in your personal car. You’ll be saving a Kilogram of carbon emission with your simple act like this.

The whole thing I want to explain here is when you’ll understand that you and your car are two different things. It might be known by your name, but you, my friend, can never be known by your Audi or BMW or any other car. These are just for your convenience and cannot be merged with your identity.

Same with the ideologies, when you start believing yourself as a right-wing guy, no matter how correct is the other person you’ll be always applying the same norms and rules to every situation.

And whether your tall or Short, dark or fair, that’s totally none of the people’s concern. It’s how society is trained to characterize people. But the problem starts when you start believing yourself as the one that people call you. They are just transferring their corrupt files in your system. And I promise I’ll talk about this in a specific post.

I talked above about one’s true personality. The thing is, knowing one’s true self is a life-long process. And I’m extremely far away from knowing that. But one thing which I have discovered in this process -One who starts seeking himself, starts thinking about the world before himself.

Om Shanti:

Love, Laughter, and Peace

Himanshu R Nagpal

Edited by : Geetika Nagpal