Ethel's Journal

Who Are You? That question sounds simple. But be not deceived by its sounds. It is one of the most penetrating questions you will ever face; one of the most difficult you will ever attempt to answer. For it pokes more than your mind and your memory. It searches - as God is said to search - the deepest secret of your being. And that is one secret too often kept even from yourself. Nothing more personal could ever be asked, nor anything more important. Yet, few indeed are they who have a real reply to the question, and fewer still are they who grasp its transcendent import. Many people today have wide and occasionally deep knowledge of countless things outside themselves, but pitiful, and even frightening, is the knowledge they have of themselves. Recently several hundred average Americans were either stopped on the street, visited in their homes, confronted in their offices or other places of employment, and asked to help set in a survey that was being conducted by some university psychologists. These people were handed a plain sheet of paper, then told that they would be rendering a real service if they would on that paper three replies to a very simple question. It Was: Who Are You? Most people gasped. Some started stuttering. Not a few exclaimed: “Who am I”? – Why? this is the queerest question I ever heard”! Undoubtedly, it was - for hundreds. But from the replies submitted, it was evident to the psychologists at the University of California at Los Angeles that at last, after months of seeking, they had found what they desired: the single question which, in the shortest space of time, will reveal most about the individual interrogated. “Who am I”? wrote one man, “why - I don’t know”? I see myself as a little inferior to others. I guess I am something put on this earth to make it a better place for those who come after me.” That man was a builder. One wonders how much building of his own life; of his own character he had done. * A bank cashier did somewhat better. “I am a soul gaining the experiences of mortality” was his first response. “I am a person progressing with an ultimate goal in mind, but not progressing as rapidly as I desire,” was his second. His third answer read: I am an individual getting an awful lot of fun out of life.” How much, we wonder, was that person putting into life? A tailor simply stared from the paper to the investigator, then back to the paper again. Finally, while scratching his head, he said, “who am I? - I never asked myself that question before … It kinda stops me. I guess I don’t know who I am, except that I am kinda all mixed up … I feel alone, all by myself, and that most people have it in for me. I feel like I gotta hold tight to everything I got, or somebody”!! take it away from me. From an officer came these three replies: I am an architect. I design office buildings. I am forty-five. It was a simple housewife who gave the psychologists what they claim is the best revelation of a person fully aware of herself, consequently, quite intimately acquainted with herself, and therefore, one who most likely would be herself, and this know happiness. Her replies ran: “Why, I’m Mary so-and-so. I am me. I am myself.” Now, inadequate as that sounds, it certainly was better than the one’s already quoted; and far better than what the man offered who gave his street address, his serial number, and his social security number. That man seemed to consider himself only a number! But you may be wondering how psychologists could ever come to such conclusions about “Mary so-and-so” from the seemingly obvious and almost meaningless replies that she gave. The explanation is not difficult. They claim that to be happy you must be able to express yourself fully; must be able to externalize your personality with ease and adequacy. But they also claim that before you will ever be able to do that, you will have to know yourself - and know yourself intimately. Looking at the replies of the housewife, they see that uppermost in her consciousness is the fact that she is herself. This indicates that she is quite well acquainted with what it is that makes her Mary-so-and-so and nobody else. Hence, she really knows something of her inner driving impulses, urges, and desires. Consequently, she will be able to express herself outwardly with ease and adequacy. A thought almost inevitably gives birth to an act; if you repeat that act often enough you generate a habit; if you consciously cultivate that habit, you will fashion a character. That is why psychologists like to get an insight into your habitual way of thinking. Give them what spontaneously rises to your consciousness, and they will surprise you by going down dark depths within you which you have never fathomed; measuring in you distances you had always thought measureless; calling back to consciousness things that you had completely forgotten.