The “Finding Yourself” Fallacy

I was recently speaking with a friend who described a common trope in American culture: the notion that one has to “find themselves”. As though we are all a lost set of keys floating aimlessly around the pantries, under the couches, or still in the front door of households across the glob. This cliché occupied my thoughts for some time. First, the notion that one is lost in the first place and, second, that they can ever be found.

I’m sure there are many more astute psychological analyses about this very topic, and this is certainly not that. But, this got me thinking more broadly about our perception of ourselves. I’ve noticed that there is a prevailing notion that as we age our life becomes more narrow, as though we are getting closer to a false pinnacle of achievement or the truth of who we truly are. I find this to be problematic for a few reasons, but particularly because if we “achieve” where we’re meant to be or become our true selves, what then? 

What if there is more hope in viewing the world as becoming more vast? A recent article I was reading illustrated this by articulating:  “A future that is uncertain holds lots of possibilities. As such, uncertainty is not reason for paralysis -- it is reason to hope.”

What if Gertrude Stein’s famous words that “there is no there there” is not only true of our pursuit of ourselves, but is also an emblem of hope? What would happen if we allowed the unknown or the never-ending to be a reflection of the hopefulness associated with constantly changing and growing rather than the despair of never finding our one true selves?

In Annie DIllard’s book For the Time Being, one of her subjects says that “‘...everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.’”