I know you are but what am I?
I am a writer. I mean, that’s how I self-identify, sort of.
Well, I write – a lot – so I must be a writer, no?
Not so fast.
How we see ourselves – self-identification – is at the heart of everything we do. It’s the reason why some people fritter away lottery winnings, why some people can’t stop smoking, and why some people never achieve whatever they themselves define as true happiness and contentment.
It’s all about whether what we think, do, and say fits into who we see ourselves as being. Whether we realize it or not, we can’t really operate comfortably outside our own self-image. On the other hand, when what we do fits into who we see ourselves as being, happiness and contentment are often more easily achievable.
So how exactly does all that work?
Of preachers and truck drivers
When we used to attend church, I was occasionally asked to conduct the service when the regular minister was away. This naturally included an opportunity to “preach” on whatever topic I chose. And I chose widely, believe me. But did that make me a preacher? Hardly. In fact, I was asked by an old friend from my militantly agnostic younger years whether I burst into flame when I entered a church building. Definitely not a preacher.
I also drive a truck – a mere pick-up, mind you – but does that make me a truck driver? Not as we would commonly understand that term, that’s for sure. On the other hand, I drove motorcoach busses for a year as a pre-retirement gig, so I guess that made me a bus driver at that time. Or at least a driver of busses.
Now please understand that I took real pride in my job as a professional driver but, for me, being a “bus driver” defined what I was doing but never who I saw myself as being. In fact, I struggled some with the job, having transitioned from being a designated professional expert in property valuation to a position that definitely didn’t have that kind of cache. Or at least, that was my take, from the way some of the condescending and disrespectful tour guides and group leaders I had to endure sometimes spoke to me.
Who is that in the mirror?
In thinking about writing this piece, I did an inventory of who I see myself as being. At the top of the list were husband and father. These are absolutely foundational (even though my daughter is well into adulthood) and, frankly, nothing else even comes close. However, being a Ukrainian-Canadian is also critical to me; this is an aspect of my identity that has particularly manifested itself in numerous unexpected ways since the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine just over two years ago. More on that below.
In addition, I am also a proud Maritimer (despite having been born on the Prairies), a historian (as per my two degrees), a University of Alberta alum, an alum of my high school, a former coach, and a patron of the arts.
I’m also a little bit of a musician, a little bit of an outdoors person, and maybe, just maybe, a little bit or a writer (or at least an essayist). Maybe. I haven’t yet decided, although my wife has given me full permission to self-identify as such.
There are other things, too, that are an obvious part of who I am, such as being a white heterosexual male, a senior citizen, and a privileged member of the first world. However, for me these are add-ons, as I would never self-identify primarily as any one of those. However, others might certainly see me that way above all else. It’s a matter of perspective, but it’s self-identification that’s the key.
Growing pains
Unsurprisingly, self-identification changes throughout one’s life. Growing up, I was a kid with very little self-confidence and a craving for acceptance and belonging. With my father being from Ukraine, I was made to participate in all manner of Ukrainian activities outside of school hours: Ukrainian Youth Association, Ukrainian dance, Ukrainian school, Ukrainian mandolin orchestra, and Ukrainian wood carving.
To be sure, this did give me a sense of belonging (sooo much belonging…) and some of those people and activities (I still play mandolin and can speak, read, and write Ukrainian, however imperfectly) remain part of my life to this very day. However, to my father’s chagrin, I also wanted to play sports of various types, as I wanted this to be part of who I was becoming in my own birth country (he never saw any value in sports).
Eventually, in high school (Grade 10 in a Grade 10-12 school), I took a stand to forge my own path. I showed up for freshman basketball try-outs and actually made the team!
Finally - a sense of self
This was not nearly as impressive as it sounds, as it was a small roster with room for everyone. And I mean everyone – it was a team of players who were either poor at the game or who had never played at an organized level (with one exception). The coach was relatively young and new to the school, so I’m thinking he had little choice but to take us on and make a project of it.
Which he did.
I learned a lot through that freshman experience and then played on the varsity team for my remaining two years of high school, although I was so far down the bench that the coach needed semaphores to communicate with me. Texting would have been better, but someone needed to invent the cell phone first.
Didn’t matter. The point is that I became a part of something that deeply mattered to me. My identity at that stage of my life was crystallized and firm – I was a member of a team and a basketball player.
An alternate ending?
I carried this around with me in everything I did, both in school and out, during both the school year and the summer. It’s how I self-identified and who I wanted the world to see I was. I loved being part of a team and I loved to play the game – the fact that I wasn’t especially gifted at it (calling me an “athlete” would have been pushing it) wasn’t important. This is who I was in those days, right to my very core.
Looking back at the first couple of months of Grade 10, prior to basketball tryouts, I hung around with some people at school whom we would now call “sketchy”. It was a vocational school outside of my home district, so there were all sorts of “characters” there and not a lot of people I knew, so I gravitated toward some questionable groups at the outset.
I sometimes wonder what I would have done and who I might have become, had I not gone to those basketball tryouts or had there been a team whose roster I wouldn’t have cracked. I’m not 100% sure that the outcome would have been all that positive among all that “sketchiness”, at least not as positive as it turned out to be with me as a basketball player.
And still, to this day…
One of the best things to come out of that basketball experience is that I’m still in contact with most of those teammates (excepting the two who passed away young) from almost 50 years ago and had remained close to our coach until his untimely passing in 2023 at the far-too-young age of 75. To this day, we all proudly continue to identify as alumni of our high school and as teammates during those years.
That’s a part of my identity that I was going to hold on to no matter how old I might be. I even have the team jacket to prove it, and it still fits, more or less…
The working years: what really mattered then
In my working years, I’ve also self-identified, and presented myself, as being of service to the public in one way or another, more so in my volunteer activities than in my paid work. I have been mayor of a small municipality, a university senator (were that my mother have been alive to hear me called “Your Worship” and “Senator Iwanus”) and, most memorably, a coach of young athletes.
I note these avocations in particular because I so closely identified with each of them. These were not just hobby activities but extensions of who I self-identified as being, as I had a very clear sense of mission in each of those positions. Each was a calling of a type and I think that those things that call us truly reflect who we are.
To this day, some of my former players still call me “Coach” and, although I may not be actively coaching any more, I will always see myself as a part of that vaunted profession.
In my working life, I also identified as a professional (having obtained professional designations in both the financial and the appraisal fields), a self-employed businessperson, and a community builder through the various organizations for which I volunteered. However, while I took pride in all of these, doing what I did in those spheres was never at the heart of my identity in the way my avocations were. These were simply the best ways for me to earn a living, not fundamentally define who I am.
My wife, on the other hand…
In contrast to me, my wife has never had any issues of identity. She trained as a Registered Nurse (RN) in the early 1980s, before a degree was a requirement in her field, and she has considered herself a nurse, first and foremost, since that time. It’s what she still does for a living and also very much a part of who she is and how she self-identifies.
Later in her career, she also worked as a mental health therapist (and took great pride in calling herself that), even obtaining a psych nursing degree and a national counselling certification. However, when she signed her name in the places that it mattered, it was always followed by the letters “RN”, with the degree and national certification almost an afterthought (the opposite was true for me – my master’s degree from the University of Alberta is an absolute point of pride and self-identification).
In her mind, those accomplishments never achieved the same status or defined who she is as much as that beloved “RN”. A proud nurse: first, last, and always (and a gardener and a horticulturalist, and a knitter – good thing the nursing pays for all that!).
Once an educator…
The same is true for the several educators whom I number as friends. Because of the early career starts that most teachers have, “retirement” also tends to come fairly early in life. This naturally means that these professionals need something else to do when those Teachers’ Retirement Fund cheques start to arrive at age 55 or so.
Almost to a person among those I know, “retirement” has meant entering some other sort of pedagogical pursuit. Sometimes, these were interesting new positions but, just as often, it was substitute teaching (“no lesson plans, no extracurricular activities, no problem,” as one friend said). Regardless, it was always something pedagogical.
I had a close teacher friend tell me that those who don’t find something to do in retirement are often dead in relatively short order.
…always an educator
In the case of my high school basketball coach, who became a dear friend as life went on, he worked as an educational assistant for a number of years after “retiring” (while unsurprisingly continuing to coach junior hockey), by the end of which he was at an advanced enough age that he had no choice but to move on somehow.
But, in his own mind, he couldn’t seem to move on, never having had a non-pedagogical “Plan B” for retirement, especially after age 70. He eventually passed away from a heart attack at age 75 while mowing the lawn, of all things.
He often spoke to me of “needing a reason to get out of bed in the morning,” but he never did find his role in the final act (I encouraged him to write a book not long before he died, but he unfortunately didn’t seem too keen on that). An educator through and through, he never could figure out where he might fit, and contribute in some way, when that option wasn’t available to him anymore.
The next generation
And it’s not just in our jobs and careers that identity fundamentally impacts our decision-making. When my very intelligent and capable daughter gave university a go several years ago, she was at the same time working at a pub where she had a lot of friends, lots of fun, and enough hard-earned income to keep her interested. Moreover, she took real pride in being an attentive and respected server, and that is precisely how she self-identified.
When she attended university, she never did make that identity transition: in her mind, she was a server giving university a try rather than a student (with all the commitments and potential activities that this might entail) who had a part-time job as a server. Irrespective of her reasons for doing so, she was done with university after a year, even though she did quite well while there.
She is still a server, now with over a decade of experience (including working in some high-end establishments both in Canada and abroad) and an eye on advancing in different leadership aspects of that profession. This suggests that being a professional server has never been just a job for her, but a significant part of how she has always self-identified.
I have no doubt that, university or not, good things will come from choosing a path in which what she does is part of who she is. Not everyone is so lucky.
How to kick “the habit”
I once read some article about quitting smoking. For most people to be able to “kick the habit” for all time, it said, it’s fundamentally necessary to identify as a non-smoker. Not so for everyone, but for most. The way I understand it, “I am a non-smoker” sends a decidedly different message to one’s subconscious than does “I am choosing not to smoke” (to which the subconscious responds, “Do you mean for today? This week? This month? You’re not fooling anyone here.”).
My wife smoked for years and quit over a decade ago – she was one of the few who managed to do it on sheer willpower. However, if there were no physical or financial costs, she would still be doing it because she enjoyed it. She has never identified as a non-smoker, but rather as a smoker who chooses not to smoke.
Cigarettes have never appealed to me, although I would love to keep smoking my pipe and the odd cigar. However, my lung health (two bouts of pneumonia and chronic, albeit well-controlled, asthma) says otherwise. Often, when I’m getting medical tests done, I’m asked, “Do you smoke?” I can honestly answer, “No,” as I haven’t touched tobacco in five years.
But if the question were phrased, “Are you a non-smoker?” I would have to answer differently if I wanted to be honest. So, like my wife, I guess I’m not really a non-smoker either, but a pipe and cigar smoker who chooses not to indulge. But, boy, would I like to.
And the winning number is…
Another example of the role of self-identification in our decision-making is the rags-to-riches lottery winner who fritters the whole thing away in record time. Stories of this are legion (one study says that 70% of lotter winners go bankrupt) and there’s a very good reason for it: the winners don’t self-identify as people with money. People who know who they are when they don’t have the proverbial pot to pot to piss in, i.e., poor, become less sure of that identity when the gold-plated piss-pot makes its unexpected appearance and unimaginable options inevitably present themselves.
They very often become profligate spenders or easy targets for every fourth-cousin-thrice-removed showing up at the door with cap in hand. They’ve just never had to think about themselves as the person not being the one holding the cap. They are people of modest means (if any at all) who happened upon some money rather than people who have money – even if it’s not millions – and know exactly what to do with it in terms of investing, spending, and donating it. Once again: big difference in self-identification.
One of many stories of gain and loss
This story is a prime example of that and is particularly illustrative because winner and her husband displayed a great deal of self-awareness and insight into their situation. Back in 2004, this Hamilton woman won $10.5 million in the Super 7. Half of it was gone by 2007, she and her husband having spent it on a large house (which they eventually lost in 2008 because it was mortgaged, believe it or not), several fancy vehicles, all-expenses-paid trips with friends all over the place, and all sorts of memorabilia.
They also gave a lot of money to family and “friends”, believing in their heart of hearts that they had an obligation to share at least some of that wealth in various ways with those less fortunate.
Eventually, all this woman had left was several hundred thousand, which she wisely (at last) placed in a trust for her children from prior relationships for when the children turn 26. In the meantime, she and her husband went back to living paycheque to paycheque in a rented house.
Lessons learned
At the point where there was very little of the $10.5 million left, the woman said, “And that was the time for the fun to stop and to just go back to life (my emphasis).” She added that her life had more purpose at that point than it did when she was always “shopping”. The husband added, “I lived like this my whole life, I never was rich,” he says. “We grew up like this, so we’re used to it.”
These people scraping by with very little money knew exactly who they were before winning the lottery and who they still were when the adventure was over. They got a ridiculous windfall and treated it exactly that way – not as a ticket to long-term security, which is likely the way someone who had at least some money would have treated it – but as a means to play around and live someone else’s life for a while.
Like most people, my wife and I occasionally bounce around what we would do if we won $100K, what we would do if it were $1 million, and what we would do if we won $10 million or more. We always conclude that we would keep doing what we’ve always done, just more of it, because that’s who we are
Except for my suggestion to buy into a professional sports team if the winnings were over $10 million. My wife says a hard “no” to that…
Moving to New Brunswick
Five years ago, my wife and I moved here to New Brunswick – for her to be closer to family and for me to fulfill my dream of living next to the ocean.
Check and check. This little Acadian fishing village is everything I hoped it would be, and then some.
We actually bought the house we live in 10 years, ago, knowing we would eventually move here, so we had quite a bit of time to prepare for the move, both logistically and psychologically. We knew it would be very difficult to leave friends (to say nothing of a son) behind and we knew we were going someplace we really wanted to be. However, we (and especially I) didn’t count on having to spend so much time figuring out who exactly we are as New Brunswickers once we got here.
No need to bore with all the details but, in essence, most of the activities and opportunities with which I so completely self-identified in Alberta were not options that presented themselves to me here. Part of it was where we chose to live (i.e., off the beaten path) and part of it was Covid delaying so many opportunities for exploration. However, in my own case, it was also a series of false starts on some things that I thought I wanted to do and be but that simply didn’t turn out the way I’d planned.
So who exactly was I to be as a New Brunswicker?
Russia invades Ukraine
Then on February 24, 2022, Russia began its brutal full-scale invasion of Ukraine and my whole world changed. The invasion affected me very deeply on an emotional level, both because Ukraine is my ancestral homeland and because I still have family there. Moreover, I had studied Ukrainian history extensively during my undergrad years and my master’s degree is in Ukrainian history (handy thing that, as it turned out).
Now, New Brunswick is not like Toronto, Montréal, or western Canada, where Ukrainians have lived for many generations and there are people with all kinds of knowledge, education, and skill on matters Ukrainian and Ukrainian-Canadian. There has been a handful of Ukrainians in New Brunswick for several decades but nothing like the organized, educated, and sometimes influential diaspora that exists in places like Winnipeg and Edmonton.
All of a sudden, I found myself in a position where what I knew in terms of Ukrainian language and history was not only something with which I self-identified, but something that the government and the community in New Brunswick badly needed and that I could provide. Damned Russian invasion broke my heart and the cowardly and misguided response from other countries angered me (and does even more so now), but I found something that I’d been missing since we moved here, namely a sense of mission and purpose.
Opportunities to contribute
While I was working for the New Brunswick government in Property Assessment, I was asked to do a series of lectures on the situation in Ukraine for government employees at all levels. The Government had initiated a program that matched government job openings with Ukrainian newcomers who had those specific skillsets and they needed someone to provide background information. With my master’s degree in history and my ability to do the presentations in (my tortured) French, I may have been the only person in the province who could actually do those lectures.
Then, among many other things, I also had the opportunity to assist in producing a video that ended up attracting many dozens of Ukrainian newcomers to the Miramichi.
Despite the distasteful reasons behind them, these were amazing opportunities to meld who I saw myself as being with what I was needed to do. I could use my ancestral language, I could use my valued master’s degree in history in a very direct way, and I could use my writing skills to advocate for the cause via newspaper articles and blog posts.
It’s that last one that really helped in the evolution of my self-identification in New Brunswick.
The final chapter?
As I’ve written here, I’ve discovered a sense of purpose in my writing in the wake of the situation in Ukraine, with my turning 65 a few months ago enhancing that purpose by creating a sense of urgency in my work.
But, in going back to my original question in this essay, does that make me a writer?
After all, it’s no secret that I don’t make much money at it at this point, and I have few regular readers (a big thank you to those who are), but have I earned the right to use the same descriptor as those who have done it all their lives and actually make a living at it?
Who do I think I am? A writer, I think.
As time has gone on, I think I am finally comfortable self-identifying as a writer. Of a sort, at least. In the same way that an amateur guitarist is a musician – even if he’s no Eric Clapton.
After all, I take a disciplined approach to writing, I write for many hours most days, I’m always looking for more opportunities to write, and I’m actually working on a book that I expect to be published well before the end of 2024 (still sounds odd when I say, “I’m working on a book”…), as well as writing these essays. (Update: the book was published in September!)
Moreover, I truly believe that my observations and experiences are worth sharing and that they make my little corner of the world a better place, this being particularly so in the areas where I have some expertise and first-hand connection.
What I am doing at this stage in my life coincides very well with how I self-identify. Next time someone asks, “What do you do?” I’m going to hold my head up high, look them in the eye and say, “I am a writer.”
And I won’t even look away when I say it.
At least I’m pretty sure I won’t.
One of the best things I have ever read! Got me thinking, WHO AM I? Who do I think I am? To be perfectly honest, I HAVE NO IDEA! Never thought about it before. How do I identify myself? I don’t. I have several titles, a mother, a sister, a wife, a nurturer, an advisor, etc. You made me realize I don’t identify myself as any of those even though those are things I am known to be. Well, when I figure out who I really am, you will be the first to know😉
I appreciate that so much, Karen. It’s a process, that’s for sure, and I’d love to hear over time how that all changes for you. Might make for its own interesting blog post!
Many interesting points to ponder. For the last 10 years plus, I as well, have not been tempted in have a cigarette. The question of “Who am I?”, never really thought about it, been told many times over the years, “What I am”. To ask oneself “Who am I?” is to question, if you have made a difference in someone’s life. Your accomplishments in helping, teaching and mentoring other people all over the country, shows that you have made a difference to those who seek knowledge and want to learn. The one word you always use when talking to me is greatly appreciated. The word I refer to is “Friend” and I am say honored to call you my friend. Quote from Grey Owl- Men become what they dream… you have dreamed well. To you and the Misses, Take care, stay well.
Wow, Jeff – I’m absolutely blown away. Maybe you should do a guest post on here yourself. Trust me when I tell you that I’m just as honoured to call you my friend as you are me. You made all the difference for me when I first moved here to NB and I’ll never forget that kindness. We’ll talk soon.