The other night I sat down to watch X-Men: Dark Phoenix. The movie opens with the following quote from the character Jean Grey:
"Who are we? Are we simply what others want us to be? Are we destined to a fate beyond our control? Or can we evolve, become something more?"
I rarely ever write down movie quotes or go back to listen to them again. For some reason this opening line resonated with me deeply. I had to listen to it again.
Let's break this down one piece at a time.
Of course man has been trying to figure out the meaning of life and "who are we?" for millennium. I believe that I am a life force, a endless sprit with untapped potental. Someday we will all find out who we really are. Living day to day however when do we really ask the question "who am I?" I don't mean that your are a father or mother, an architect or a nurse or what your name is. I mean who are you outside of the identity that society has branded you with. This is a much deeper question that we all must do some searching for.
I can guarantee you this, you are not what you have been told you are. You have been lied to your entire life by yourself and those around you. Not in an intentional way. In a way that you and your loved ones try to protect you type of lie. Even worse, you are what you think you are, and unfortunately you think you are what you have been branded by others.
The second question is what really got my attention and is probably what shapes our answer to the first question. Are we really just a soup of what others want us to be? Think about your life, think about all the things you have been told and how you adjust to them. Think about how you may have tried to fit in, go with the flow.
Have you ever been told at work to "get on board" when you know it was the wrong thing to do? Did your parents ever tell you to "be quite" or "be seen and not heard"? Have you shaped who you are because the rest of the cowards around you told you to be a certain way? Sure you have, and so have I and we both hated ourselves for it.
I think the answer to the last two questions lies within you. Once you realize that you can be control of who and what you are your fate is in your hands. Yes, we can all become more then what we are, we can evolve, but first we have to come to terms with the fact that we might be living in an echo chamber that is not built to help us reach our potential.
Look, we all have the ability to be amazing, "evolve and become something more" as Jean Grey would say. You and I need to leave the chamber and start that evolution.