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  %STAGES LIFE IDENTITY CHANGE RELATIONSHIP CONTROL 921215

     At  any one point in our life we are likely to regard
ourself as having a given personal identity; giving little
thought   to  the  continual  process  of  change  in  our
identity.   We  may gain a sense of security  out  of  the
illusion that our identity is permanent, not changing.

     The reality is that our identity changes  during  our
lives  due  to  changing metabolic processes in  our  body
relating to our sexuality and level of  overall  vitality.
We  have relatively little control over those changes  and
must learn to cope with them, or be dysfunctional.

     Our  personal  identity  depends  greatly  upon   our
relationships  with  members of our families,  those  with
whom we work, our friends and lovers,  our enemies. We not
only  create our relationships;   our relationships create
us.  We have some control over what kinds of relationships
we enter into, how they evolve and how we respond to them;
but we cannot have total control over our relationships or
responses---just as others cannot have  total control over
our relationships or how we respond to our relationships.

     Our challenge is to develop paradigms within which to
cope   with  our  changing  metabolic  processes  and  our
changing  relationships;  and to do so with  personal  and
communal integrity.  Our coping must be cooperative to  be
integrative.  We cannot be integrative in isolation, or in
relationships which are competitive but not cooperative.

     If  our paradigms are based upon the premise that  we
can   have  unchanging  identities  within  our   changing
universe;   then our paradigms,  persons  and  communities
cannot  exist  with integrity within a changing  universe.
Such paradigms are dishonest and encourage collusive games
of mutual self deception.

     We  will  not  enjoy fulfillment and satisfaction  so
long  as we try to live according to paradigms  which  are
based upon false premises.

                                                                                                                               
                         (c) 2005 by Paul A. Smith in      
                    (On Being Yourself, Whole and Healthy)  
                                                                                                                               
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