Growing up, I was often told, “Why can’t you be more like your brother?” Or, “You’re not like your father.” “You’re different from your mother.”
Those constant comparisons frustrated me more than anything, and in a way, they also made me sad. At the time, I didn’t really understand where that tension came from, so I let anger take over. It was simply the easiest emotion to recognize and express.
Deep down, I wanted to be like my parents. They were respected, strong people. It’s natural for a child to want to follow in the footsteps of one or both parents. At the same time, though, I also wanted to be seen as myself.
And every time someone compared me to my brother (since we were almost always together), it created distance between that person and me. A little between my brother and me as well, but mostly between me and everyone else. I remember one of my brother’s girlfriends who got into the habit of calling me whenever she couldn’t reach him or whenever they were having a problem. One day, I asked her why she only called me to get to my brother. She told me that talking to my brother was basically the same as talking to me.
The anger I felt after hearing that turned into resentment, and I stopped trying to talk to her or build any kind of relationship with her.
She had treated me like an extension of my brother, and I have to admit, I truly hated that.
There have always been many comparisons between the way I am and the rest of my family. There are plenty of differences and plenty of similarities, yet people always seem to point out the differences.
Today, however, those comments no longer bother me. The tension that the child and the teenager within me carried has faded away.
At some point, it becomes important to become yourself. It’s true that we first learn who we are by comparing ourselves to others. We develop parts of our character by observing the people around us. We shape our attitudes in relation to them—sometimes to become more like them, sometimes to become different from them.
A child defines themselves through the people around them. That is what sometimes creates a tension we continue to carry even after becoming adults. We struggle between the desire to be like our parents and the desire to be a little different from them. That longing to become ourselves can become a source of shame and intimidation because people never stop reminding us where we come from, sometimes with the intention of making us feel guilty or keeping us inside a box.
It is in our nature to want to honor those who came before us, to make our parents proud. We try to carry the weight of their expectations and avoid disappointing them. Sometimes, that leads us to hide who we are and sacrifice our dreams. Some of the paths that open before us can feel like a betrayal of where we come from. Very often, even when we truly want to follow those paths, the thought of betraying our heritage holds us back.
Following your own path, becoming yourself, is not always a betrayal of your roots.
When a child learns to walk, they first move in a straight line. They hold onto a wall, for example, and follow wherever that wall leads. Although the wall helps them keep their balance and move forward with confidence at first, they cannot follow that straight path forever. Eventually, they become strong and balanced enough to choose their own direction. And even if they walk the opposite way, the wall remains the point of reference that first gave them stability.
We see traces of this same mechanism in adulthood. When we are weak—for example, when someone is too drunk to walk straight—they often lean against a wall just to keep moving.
The child is not the wall, but the wall is an important part of helping the child learn to walk.
The same is true of identity. At first, we define ourselves by following the path laid out by others. But eventually, we should follow our own path, even if it sometimes feels like we are walking in the opposite direction from those who raised us.
Today, when someone tells me I’m not like a member of my family, I simply answer, “I’m me.” And if they tell me I am like them, I accept that I learned from them.
There is no longer any tension. I want to be like them in certain ways while still becoming myself.
Which brings us back to the idea we’ve been developing throughout this series: perhaps identity is not about rejecting what we’ve inherited or becoming someone else. Perhaps it is about recognizing what has been passed down to us, choosing what we want to carry forward and what we want to leave behind, while continuing to follow our own path.
What matters is being yourself.
Mirror Question:
What part of yourself have you been afraid to embrace because it felt like a betrayal of where you came from?
This week’s poem
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With clarity,
Odel A
The Mirror Room