Incomplete Definitions

I have developed a keen interest in sports recently (trust me, I am a simpleton when it comes to sports), especially in women sportspersons maybe because I can relate to them at some level. As I think about them and their achievements, I wonder what it would be like to be defined by your victories alone, by a few moments of arduous sweat and maybe pain. How would they see themselves if not as the top in their careers?

Is that how we see ourselves too, as either successes or failures? Is life just about the high and lows? What about the in-betweens?

The truth is, we can’t define a living evolving human with a mere adjectives or nouns. We can’t define ourselves by them either. We are not just “lawyers”, “athletes”, “doctors”, “engineers” etc. Our definition keeps changing every moment, just like the changing hues of the sky and if you want to know someone really, it can’t be just for the bright times.

I guess the theme of this article is identity and its dynamic nature and the difficulty that each one of us faces while accepting a given identity at a particular instance of time or sometimes sticking to an identity in the past.

I don’t know how high achieving successful people feel after they have reached the peak, do they feel like this is all there is to life and this is who they are or does that high last? Do they only identify with their successes?

What am I if not these beats of my heart or the air inside my lungs? Do I have to fit in the identity that you suppose me to or can I can just keep moving like the wind?

It’s alright to be a work in progress. It’s alright to not define yourself by a moment of victory or failure.

Aditi Agarwal