Who Am I Not: On Identity, Change, and the True Self
Who am I, when familiar identities fade?
From elementary school to university, “student” was always the core of my self-identity.
No—more precisely, it was being a good student.
Grades, teachers’ evaluations, and personal expectations shaped my understanding of who I was.
Back then, I knew exactly what my role was and what I needed to do to earn recognition.
Then came a blank period between graduating from university and starting grad school.
I thought I’d feel free, but instead I felt lost.
Like a boat drifting away from the dock—finally free of its moorings, yet directionless. Released from the ropes, but with nowhere to anchor. Holding an anchor in hand, but with no destination in sight.
Adrift in a vast ocean, I floated and wandered, more unsettled than ever before.
A River’s Reminder: We Are Always Changing
During that time, I reread some books and started to rethink what the “self” really means.
There was one metaphor I especially liked:
“Imagine yourself as a river.
A river is always flowing, but an essential part of a river is its banks.
Without the banks, there is no river.”
The flowing water represents our ever-changing nature.
We evolve through our experiences, emotions, and roles, always moving forward.
The riverbanks represent the resilient and flexible boundaries that shape and contain the water, giving each river its unique and visible path.
Seeing myself as a river helped me embrace change more gently, without treating every shift as a form of “loss.”
Shifting Identity Doesn’t Mean Losing Yourself
This reminded me of a story shared by writer Brad Stulberg in his book Master of Change.
He said:
“Whether or not I can lift the barbell today just doesn’t matter as much as it used to.”
As a kid who was constantly bullied, he turned to American football to feel safer. Strength training became a way to prove his worth.
Back then, the identity of “athlete” was almost everything to him.
After entering college, he stopped playing football and started running marathons and competing in triathlons.
He changed, but “sports” still remained central to who he was.
Effort, discipline, performance—these were still the cornerstones of his identity.
Fast forward, and Brad finds himself back in the gym, gripping a barbell, squatting down.
But the reflection in the mirror is no longer the teenager desperate to prove himself, nor the young man obsessed with achievement.
This time, he wasn’t training to define himself—but simply to let movement accompany him in the process of becoming himself.
His identity had widened, softened, opened.
He is now a husband, father, writer, coach, reader, friend.
He no longer needs a single role to define his entire self.
Like a river that keeps flowing and expanding, yet always remains the same river.
By allowing change, he became whole.
The Habitual Self and the Larger Self
What makes us so shaken in the face of change is that our identities are often tied too tightly to a specific goal, person, or concept.
So when that role shifts or fades, we ask: Who am I now?
In Buddhism, there’s a theory of the self that draws a distinction between the “conventional self” and the “ultimate self.”
The conventional self is the one you use in daily life:
The one reading this article, working on tasks, stopping at red lights.
This self has clear roles and functions, grounded in the present, with defined boundaries.
The ultimate self, on the other hand, is more fluid and expansive.
It includes your interactions, your changes, your connections with others.
It holds your childhood, ancestral memory, environment, culture—everything.
It’s the extended self, the evolving self, the “me” that exists within a larger field of life.
Both selves are real,
Just like the water and banks of a river—they exist together to form the whole.
But we can’t live only in spiritual abstraction.
We still have to stop at red lights and deal with life’s immediate problems.
Nor can we live solely within our habitual roles and identities, forgetting that we are more than the sum of our parts.
We are rivers flowing through different terrains, never fixed to a single shape or stretch of riverbank.
The Pain of Change Lies in the Crumbling of Identity
What hurts most about change isn’t always the change itself—but how it shakes the familiar sense of who we are.
During the post-graduation limbo, I realized I’d long centered my identity on being a student.
School was a structured world with clear goals and metrics—a place where effort translated into scores, and scores into self-worth.
But when that identity left the stage, I felt abandoned—like an orphan in the world.
I’d forgotten that I was more than just a “student.”
I’m a creator, a daughter, a mental health advocate, a reader.
Someone who’s drawn to cute animals, and especially fond of sheep.
These roles might not have been so obvious before, but they were always there—quietly shaping me.
A Flexible Self is a Stable Self
What I’ve learned since then is that the goal isn’t to become some one true self—but to build a self made of many parts.
Identity is like a house with many rooms.
Each room represents a different part of life:
Creator, child, partner, parent, athlete, healer, learner…
When one room changes—an injury, a breakup, a retirement—you still have other rooms to live in.
Just like a river that flows through different terrains, sometimes rapid, sometimes slow.
But it never stops being a river.
Water can change shape, but its essence remains the same.
So do we.
Conclusion: I Am Not Someone—And That’s Why I Can Become Anyone
“I’m not someone”—that phrase might sound unsettling at first.
But actually, it means freedom.
The freedom to flow, to change, to not be trapped by a single role.
I don’t need a label to define who I am, nor do I need to re-earn my worth every time I shift.
Some of the labels once stuck to me will fade; others will fall away and be replaced.
Rather than clinging to the question “Who am I?”,
perhaps it’s more meaningful to ask:
“Who am I becoming—right now?”
There’s no fixed answer there,
but there is endless possibility.
“Life is Open-Ended”—that’s why I write.