Accidentals: Freedom of Identity

 

Photo by Dorrell Tibbs on Unsplash

Some of the many decisions you make during your day include those around who you are or who you want to be. It can be severely challenging to be questioned about your choices, more so if they are around how you identify yourself. It is even more challenging when those choices create rifts between people.

You define who you want to be. When it comes to identity, only a few choices are made for you e.g., where you are born, which can, by the way, dictate your nationality. The reality however, is that you can choose to be who you want to be. National allegiance, religious inclination, and gender expression are but a few examples. While the choice remains with you, others' perceptions of your choice, sadly, do not.

There is unneeded friction between people when it comes to identity. They are often, if not all the time, well intentioned. If somebody believes that changing one's religion is wrong for example, when somebody does it won't be looked at favorably. We can't force people to be us... and we shouldn't. This is exactly why, I imagine, helicopter parenting is looked at unfavorably. We have no right to impose our beliefs on others.

Everybody should be allowed a choice. We are welcome to voice our opinions, respectfully, but not go out of our own way to make it impossible for others to live with their choices. They are not ours to make, with the exception of substantial evidence to suggest that another's choice will result in harm to themselves or others.

There is no doubt in my mind that each of us have a different set of values: we live by them, we grow by them, and more often than not we judge ourselves by them; but those should never prevent us from being human to one another.