If you ask most people “Who are you?”, they will say things like “I’m Jack, I’m Joan, I’m a painter, a singer, a lawyer, a hippy, a husband, a mother, male or female”, and so on. They will identify with their name, job (title), where they live, their gender, nationality, status, and some will even identify with their possessions, but those are all just ideas, thoughts or concepts.

These are all roles you play in society, but they aren’t the essence of who you really are. What you really are isn’t that always present and never changing?

If you would change your mind, your thoughts, your opinion, your point of view, your behavior, your personality, your job, would you constantly be a different you? Of course not, all these things are just concepts and not the essence of who you really are. The real you is not fleeting, switching and isn’t bound to doing, having, location, space or time. So who are you then?

Are you your thoughts?

All the roles you play in your life are changing all the time. If you take a look at your opinions, your point of view and who you think you are from an early age until now, we can surely say they have changed overtime.

How you thought about things as a young kid, a teenager, a young adult until now are quite different, aren’t they? So your opinions and beliefs are not who you really are, because they change dramatically. Sometimes they even change from one day or one moment to the next.

They are no more than imaginary ideas, thoughts or mental constructs, so you can safely say a thought is not something you are. A thought is an abstract object, usually short-lived and can be observed.

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