I have been thinking about a simple question: Who am I? We spend a lot of our life creating an identity. We identify with our body, our mind, our work, our relationships, our achievements, our failures, and our desires. Much of our motivation also comes from this identity. We want to become successful, respected, wealthy, loved, or important. But what happens when some of these things disappear? Perhaps the career is no longer exciting. Perhaps the children have grown up and gone to college. Perhaps we have achieved what we wanted and still don’t know what is next. Or perhaps we simply don’t have much desire left. This can feel like a midlife crisis, or even like there is nothing left to live for. But what if the problem is not that we have run out of things to do? What if we have been searching for our identity in the wrong places?
Awareness → Attention → Ego → Desire → Happiness → Surrender → No-Mind
1. What is “I”?
“I” is an illusion. We have a body. We have a mind. We mistakenly think that the body is I or the mind is I. We also create an identity from what we pay attention to. We become what we pay attention to. For example, when I am focusing on my breath, I become the breath. When I am thinking, I become the thinking. But I think none of this is the true I. The body changes, thoughts change, careers change, relationships change, and even our desires change. If all these things can change, then perhaps they cannot be the deepest identity of who we are.
2. Who are we?
Who are we? I think I can simply say that “I am” alive. That aliveness sensation is awareness. Before saying I am a father, I am a professional, I am successful, I am unsuccessful, I am rich, or I am poor, there is simply “I am.” These identities come later. This is important because many of us spend our whole life trying to protect or improve these identities. Then one day a job ends, children leave home, money is no longer exciting, a relationship changes, or the body becomes older, and we wonder, “Who am I now?” Perhaps we are asking this question because we have mistaken our roles for our identity.
3. What is attention?
We become what we pay attention to. That attention is like a torch beam. Wherever we point the torch, that becomes the center of our experience, and slowly we may start identifying with it. If all my attention is on my career, I become my career. If it is on money, I become money. If it is on my problems, I become my problems. If it is on my thoughts, I become my thoughts. But we are not the beam. We are the source of that torch, that attention beam. Attention moves from one object to another, but the awareness behind it remains.
4. Why do we feel lost in midlife?
Perhaps a midlife crisis is sometimes an identity crisis. For many years, life gives us ready-made identities: student, professional, husband or wife, parent, provider, achiever. We keep moving because there is always something to become. Then the children grow up and go to college. The career may become repetitive. We may have enough money. We may have achieved many of the things we once wanted. Suddenly there is no obvious next identity to create. We ask, “What is next?” Perhaps the answer does not have to be another identity. Perhaps this is an opportunity to question the whole search for identity.
5. What if I have no desire?
What if I don’t have another big desire? What if I don’t want another promotion, another house, another relationship, another achievement, or another adventure? I don’t think that automatically means life has no meaning. Maybe it means the mind is tired of constantly becoming something. We have been taught that motivation comes from wanting something. But perhaps there is another way to live. We can continue doing what is necessary without needing a huge desire behind everything. We can take care of the body, spend time with people we love, do our work, help others, learn something, write, walk, sit quietly, or simply experience a day. Life does not have to be justified by a new achievement.
6. Do we have a purpose?
Do we have a purpose? I think the purpose is just to be. We spend much of our life trying to become someone — successful, respected, wealthy, knowledgeable, or important. But if these are identities created by the mind, what happens when we stop trying to become something? Perhaps nothing needs to happen. We can simply be alive. If we want happiness, we should know we are the awareness. Why inquire into awareness? Because without inquiring into it, we’re always seeking happiness in objects and identities. We think the next achievement, relationship, possession, or experience will finally make us complete. But perhaps lasting happiness comes from realizing that we don’t need to become someone else to be whole.
7. Is there personal doership?
Before understanding personal doership, let’s understand what ego is. Ego is a false identity, the false I, the illusion. When we do a task, ego takes the credit that I did it. We then build an identity around what we have done: I am successful, I am intelligent, I am important, or I am a failure. In reality, the task is done by the body-mind-intellect combination. So, there is no personal doership, as a person sitting in the body. Do we have free will? Yes, we have free will from the body-mind-intellect perspective. Intellect changes, so decision-making changes. So, we have free will. But still, that change is also happening automatically, as per our learnings and experiences. Seeing this may reduce the pressure to constantly prove who we are.
8. How should I live my life?
Desires are traps. Basic living needs are required. Anything beyond basic needs can become a desire trap when we start believing that fulfilling the desire will complete our identity. We want to be richer, more successful, more respected, more attractive, or more important because we think these things will improve who we are. But perhaps we don’t need to reject life or stop doing things. We can work, earn money, raise children, maintain our health, write, make friends, and enjoy experiences. The difference is that these things don’t have to answer the question of who I am. Living a simple, natural, unforced life may mean doing what needs to be done without constantly asking life to give us a new identity.
9. What about pleasures and pain?
Pleasures and pain are traps. Pleasures are like searching for happiness outside. Pain is like being sad when a desire is not fulfilled. One pleasure leads to another. One desire leads to another desire, in a constant search for happiness. We create an identity around these desires: I want this, I need this, I must become this. When that identity is challenged, we suffer. For any suffering, desire is the root. So, giving up desires is a way towards happiness. It does not necessarily mean giving up everything we enjoy. It may simply mean giving up the belief that the next pleasure, achievement, or relationship will finally tell us who we are.
10. Why surrender the ego?
I think surrender is going back to the search for happiness. It is also a way of surrendering the false identity of “I am the doer.” Instead of thinking, “I am doing everything and I must control everything,” surrender means letting go of some of that control. Perhaps surrender is not about giving up on life, but about letting go of the identity that says, “I know what should happen.” When we surrender, we may discover that we don’t have to constantly create the next version of ourselves.
11. Why is there an urge to do something?
I think it is needed for survival to do something. I also think it is due to social structure. We are taught to become something. Become successful. Become rich. Become respected. Become somebody. The mind keeps waiting for the next thing, and the identity we have created keeps asking us to improve it. Perhaps this is why someone can reach middle age, have a good job, money, a home, children, and many achievements, and still ask, “What is next?” The mind is waiting for another identity to chase.
12. What happens when there is nothing left to become?
Maybe this is the most important question. Imagine someone whose children have gone to college, whose career has reached a comfortable point, and who no longer feels excited by another promotion or another possession. They may think, “I have done everything. What is left?” Or imagine someone who has not achieved those things and has simply lost the desire to pursue them. In both cases, perhaps the answer is not to manufacture another desire. Perhaps it is to discover that life does not end when becoming ends. We can move from becoming to being. We can still act, work, love, serve, learn, and experience life, but we don’t have to use all of these things to construct an identity.
13. What is no-mind?
Maybe this is where no-mind comes in. Mind means thoughts, waiting, wanting, and becoming. No-mind means there is no need to become something. There is simply being. The body and mind can still function. We can still work, take care of family, write, speak, and do our duties. But underneath all of this, there can be a quiet understanding: I don’t have to become something to be. I already am. Perhaps the joy we are searching for is experienced when the constant movement of the mind becomes quiet and we are simply present.
Awareness → Attention → Ego → Desire → Happiness → Surrender → No-Mind
Maybe the search for identity ends when we realize that the Self is not an identity we have to create. The job may change. The children may leave home. The body may age. The desires may come and go. The roles we play in life may change completely. But the simple sense of “I am” remains. Maybe this is what we can discover in the middle of life: we don’t need to find another reason to become someone. We can learn to simply be someone who is alive. And perhaps the search ends where it begins — with simply “I am.”
14. What do I do when I don’t know what to live for?
Maybe the answer is simple: learn to live. If I don’t have a big desire, I don’t need to immediately create one. I can take care of my body, do my basic duties, spend time with people, earn what I need, help where I can, learn something, walk, sit quietly, pray, meditate, write, or simply enjoy an ordinary day. I can continue living without constantly asking, “What is next?” Perhaps motivation does not always have to come from a big goal. Sometimes life itself can be enough. I can do what needs to be done and allow the rest to unfold naturally.
15. What if I feel there is nothing left?
Maybe there is nothing left to become. And perhaps that is not a problem. We spend our lives becoming someone: a student, a professional, a spouse, a parent, a successful person. Then some of those identities disappear. The children grow up. The career slows down. The excitement of money or achievement fades. We may feel empty because we are looking for another identity to replace the old one. But perhaps this emptiness is an invitation to stop becoming and start being. I don’t need a new identity to continue living. I can simply be alive and see what life brings.
16. So, how do I continue living?
Perhaps I continue living by making life simple. I do my duties. I take care of myself and the people around me. I stay connected. I do things that feel natural rather than forcing myself to chase things I don’t really want. I give myself permission to have small desires without making them my identity. And I spend some time becoming quiet, where I am not waiting for the next thing. Maybe this is what it means to learn to live: not constantly asking life to give me something, but learning to experience the life that is already here.
Maybe the goal is not to find another reason to live. Maybe it is to discover that being alive does not require a reason.
I am. That is where life begins.
