The morning was chilly just like the mood around the home. The sun was nowhere: must be one of those mornings the sun oversleeps. No birds sang in the trees and the air was still and icy cold. I guess the sunshine was really gone. People huddled together in small groups and spoke in hushed tones. Many eyes were teary and some wails could be heard every now and then. Then we heard the honking. The hearse was here, so were the remains of uncle Toby. I could not come to believe that he was really gone but there it was: the hearse that brought him home. One last trip home. We took our seats in the tent marked ‘family’ while the senior family members showed everyone else where to sit. Soon everyone was settled and the funeral service got under way. I did not hear much of it anyway. My mind was on time travel: down memory lane trying to piece together the few memories of uncle Toby that I had. I did not meet him much often but knew a bit about him, mainly from the stories that always seemed to do the rounds. Time came for family members to give their tributes and goodbyes. He couldn’t hear but they said them anyway. Speaker after speaker went up the podium and gave a glowing tribute of uncle Toby. How they will miss him, how he touched their lives. But just a few days earlier there had been a family meeting and the topic was….you guessed right: uncle Toby. Only this time there were no glowing tributes but rantings and rumblings of the pain and misery he had caused his family. Neglecting his wife and children, battering his wife almost to death, stealing from family…the list seemed to never end. But this? What changed? One time we were complaining, and praising to the skies the very next one. Talk of talking from both sides of our mouths.

I closed my eyes and wandered off. I saw the day playing out all over again. The hearse arrived and this time, it was not uncle Toby. I inched closer to the front. Nobody seemed to notice that I was there, or that I had touched them. I got to the front and peered in to the coffin and gasped. It was me! I was all dressed up and the reason everyone was here. No wonder nobody could see me, as I was not real. I found a place at the front and sat on the ground, waiting for the service to go on. Then the talking began. As the first speaker (who was my best friend) got to the podium, I woke up. A light sweat sat pretty on my brow and my heart raced. That was not good. But it got me thinking. I wondered what my friends would have said. My family, my colleagues. I wondered who I really was. Do the people in my life know me for me or for what I choose to show them?

Sometimes we may try to hide from others, but we can never really hide from ourselves. Get up and walk to a mirror. Find a clean, clear mirror with good lighting and take a long hard look at the person looking back at you. Notice the hairline, perhaps a few gray hairs to mark the floor we have got to in life. Look at the brow. Notice the furrows: clear evidence of the many frowned-upon moments due to unhappiness, pain or plain old meanness. Forget for once who people say you are: who actually are you? How do you define yourself? Do you even know the person looking back at you?

A wise person once said that we cannot conquer the world unless we conquer ourselves. I add: we cannot conquer what we do not know and the one person we can never lie to is ourselves. We cannot deny how we feel, why we feel that way, what we want, our desires and passions (or a lack of them). We can fool everybody else but us.

Defining self as I am

Who I am is greater than the role I play. I could be a mother, a wife, a teacher or any other part I play in this life but that is not who I am. That is basically what I do. We tend to confuse doing and being: who we are is the being part of our lives, and is the reason we are human beings not human doings. Examples of attributes we can use to describe ourselves include our gender, our age, our birthplace, our character, our passions or personality e.g I am a Kenyan lady aged 20 years and I am light in complexion. I am kind, generous and shy. ….you get the drift. Our present nature, characteristics and attributes are shaped largely by the experiences and paradigms we hold in life: the things we have gone through and learnt along the path of life affect how we view life and behave. This may not necessarily be who we are or meant to be and like any other habit: anything we have come to learn can be unlearned.

Defining why I act the way I do

Once we honestly label the attributes that describe us as we are, we step back and evaluate them. What underlies them? What causes us to be as we are? Is it a past experience that drove us to have the bias that we have? Is it a fear that makes us do what we loath? Is it an attempt to make up for areas we may be deficient in? Whatever the reason we give, if what we are is not what we should be, then we have to let it go. Confront the wrong belief, the fear or the experience and let it go. A story is once told of a lady who was well advanced in years and still single, having put off a line of suitors. Not that they were bad, but she could not bring herself to trust that they would not break her heart and cheat on her. The cause of this fear was an experience in her late teens when her most favourite uncle made a pass at her. He was the most trustworthy member of the family, highly esteemed and with a loving and beautiful wife yet he did it. She had then determined that all men were cheaters. When she confronted this truth, she realized she still held a lot of bitterness towards her uncle. She resolved to immediately forgive him and let go and it was not long before she was happily married. It may not always be that simple but it is well worth the effort to seek the liberation from the prison we allow ourselves to sit in.

Then…….Face off

Once you identify why you act as you do, and are well on your way to make amends as necessary, it is time to find yourself. This is one of the most profound aspirations of every human being; one we may never fully achieve in one lifetime but one so satisfying. Finding oneself means we identify who and what we are and what our life purpose is. It impacts every other life decision w make thereafter and its pursuit enables us live a life that is rich and satisfying. I remember how I embarked on this journey. It a sunny afternoon and I sat chatting with a friend. We talked about everything and anything until suddenly my friend looked at me in the eyes and asked me who I was: in one sentence. I opened my mouth and shut it again. I searched and searched. I knew my attributes, I knew my roles, I knew what was expected of me but realized I did not know exactly who I was. Looking back, that question changed my life. It has made the last few years of my life the most exciting adventure I have ever embarked on.  Wait: did I say exciting? Confusing maybe. A few questions helped me: read more about them in the article ‘discovering who I am’ and enjoy your own adventure. Show us who you truly are: the world definitely needs you. There is never anyone without a purpose or a reason why they are. Sadly, most of us go through our entire lives without ever discovering this and end up a wasted heap of dust when we expire. Not any more because right now, we are going to face-off! No more disguises. Get real! Yet, life is all about our choices: choices to find and be ourselves or not.