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A long time ago, I was talking on the phone with someone about purpose.

The person on the other end, she was having a rough time figuring out what she wanted in life. She would change her mind as soon as another potential option flashed across her thoughts. And each time she changed her mind, she became more unhappy and frustrated.

“I’d like to live in a different place. A place like Paris or somewhere that has something happening. There is nothing here where I am now.”

“I’d like a lot of money. Enough money where I could travel wherever I wanted. I feel trapped here without any way to pay for the things I want.”

“I want to make music, to finally feel as though I’m an artist. Nothing I’ve ever made has been any good. Just for once, I’d like to feel like I’ve done something to validate all the time I’ve spent practicing.”

I replied:

“Well, suppose that you pick _one thing. Just one. If you single something out, and you are willing to get it at any cost, it would be hard not to get it.”_

“But I don’t know what I want! I want all of those things.”

“Well then, I suppose you have to find something that has all of those things within it.”

By this time, she had gotten quite frustrated. So she spat my question right back in my face.

“Well then, David, what do you want?”

The interesting thing I’ve found about talking with people is that it always clarifies my own thoughts. Before I started having this conversation, I wasn’t quite sure how to answer this question. But the back and forth lead me to an answer that I still hold to today.

“I want my life to be an adventure. As long as the road ahead of my is filled with glory, I’ll always be happy.”

Thinking back to this conversation has always been my method to determine whether or not to change course when faced with a major decision. At every fork in the road I ask myself: “will this choice lead to adventure.” If the answer is “yes” I pursue it no matter where it leads.

A long time ago I was singing in the chorus of an opera. It was our last performance of Verdi’s La Traviata, and I was playing the part of a drunken reveler. To get into character, my colleagues and I got very intoxicated before the show. I had more ambition, so I was far more gone than the rest of them.

We finished the first act and were settling in to wait out the second (we spent all of it offstage). Spirits were high in the waiting room and there was a great deal of energy and laughter everywhere.

I sat in a chair at the edge of the room, watching the more energetic choristers rollicking around in the center. They were all still wearing their costumes and their makeup looked overdone and exaggerated under normal lighting.

I looked at them and noticed something: even though they were offstage, every single person was still playing a character. The makeup and the mood of the of the night exaggerated it, but it left a distinct impression on me that these people, however conscious of it or not, was acting out a role.

It got me thinking: how much of this is true of all of us every day? What parts of ourselves are a character we take on, and what parts of us are really “us,” unchanging and constant?

I’ve been thinking about this ever since that night, and I’ve come to the conclusion that most of who we think we are is arbitrary. The “us” we cling to is just a character.

We are not our job titles, though people try so hard tell us that we are. We are not our accents and our origins, these occurred through chance and events outside of our control. Who “we” are is our interpretation of our memories, which are fragmented, biased, and rife with chaotic emotion.

There is very little holding together who we think we are each and every day. It’s only the story that we keep internally telling ourselves that defines who “we” are.

Instead of this being a bad thing, it can be a wonderful opportunity. We can be whoever we want to be. Why not be the people we read about in stories? Why not be the people we dream about becoming?

As someone whose name I have long since forgotten once said:

“don’t be lonesome for your heroes. Be your own heroes.”

From this perspective, we have complete control of who we are and who we become. We have nothing to lose if the “people” we have been clinging to never really existed in the first place. Personality is arbitrary, so why not make ourselves into the people we’ve always wanted to be?