who are you?
who you say you are vs. who people say you are
at energy week vaasa, i spoke with a stranger — something that’s becoming more common as part of my integration efforts into a new environment. he asked a question i almost always get from strangers: my age. in my usual manner, i asked him to guess. he did, and it was closer than most people get. when i told him my actual age and asked if he was surprised, he said something that stuck with me: “not quite, because you exude so much confidence.”
the word ‘confidence’ is not something i’d associate with myself. but this wasn’t an isolated event.
friends, family, and even online acquaintances have repeatedly told me that i radiate confidence. yet, internally, i feel anything but. i have always been a shy person, hesitant to mingle or strike up a conversation. and yet, when i step into public spaces or engage with strangers, i slip into a persona that is expressive, assured — one that people assume comes naturally to me. what they don’t see are the thousand and one questions racing through my mind and the inertia i must overcome before every interaction.
much like the ship of theseus, i see this as a paradox. if a ship has all its parts gradually replaced over time, is it still the same ship? if people consistently perceive me as confident while i feel otherwise, which version is the real me? is confidence something i am, or something i do? who am i?
looking back, i’ve been thrust into situations that demanded confidence, whether i wanted it or not — delivering the graduation speech in nursery school, debating in primary school, leading as head prefect in secondary school. excellence, or rather the fear of failure, had been ingrained in me from childhood so i developed a persona that acts as a second skin, one i slip into when necessary.
more recently, i’ve realized that introversion alone won’t get me closer to my goals — especially not my million-dollar dream. it’s become clear that to achieve what i envision, i need to continue stepping out of my comfort zone and embracing the roles life demands of me.
this leaves me wondering: am i like batman — playing the role of a billionaire by day and a masked crimefighter by night? do i simply put on an act in public while secretly waiting for it to be over so i can return to the comfort of my true self? or is there no clear answer at all, just the multiplicity of life? it seems life does not grant us the luxury of a single, static identity; instead, it asks us to navigate between versions of ourselves — some intentional, others shaped by experience and the demands of connection and survival.
and for those of you who have interacted with me, i ask, just as Jesus asked his disciples: who do you say i am?
for everyone reading this, i wonder — have you ever felt this disconnect between how others perceive you and how you see yourself? which version do you consider the real you?
