Day 60: Many Mes

I think the Buddhists are onto something. That, or I’m suffering from a serious psychiatric disorder.

One of the things I’ve discovered during this whole ‘do things differently and see if something different happens’ experiment is that there is not, in fact, a single “me”.

Like most people, I’ve always thought that there was an unchanging (or at least slowly-changing) overlord riding around in my head, controlling the meat puppet and observing the world with a fixed viewpoint that, while not objective, was at least built from a solid foundation of experience and thought.

I’ve always thought there was an “I”, as in “I don’t like exercise” or “I am an omnivore” or “I constantly try to be better”.

Furthermore, I’ve always thought that any attempt to really change the “I” was, in the long run, just putting lipstick on a pig, akin to those silly putty girls that change personalities, hobbies, and habits as they change boyfriends. “I” can exercise, and “I” can even tell myself that I LIKE exercise, but ultimately, I don’t, and I’ll go back to my old non-exercising habits and feel ridiculous about even having thought I’d stay with it.

But what I’ve discovered instead is that there isn’t a fixed “me”.

I don’t just act differently in different situations and with different people. I AM different. I feel different. I react differently. I can’t call up the “me” that I am in other situations with other people.

And it’s not the people factor, because it happens when I’m alone, too. When I’m on a roll eating right, exercising right, and thinking right, it’s not “me” putting on a different psychic coat; that me is really me. The me feels like it’s always BEEN the me, and that the me that eats crap and never moves was the imposter. I can’t believe I ever WANTED a double Whopper. I can’t believe I forgot how amazing vegetables are. I can’t picture NOT wanting to work out for an hour every morning.

And, of course, when lazy, undisciplined me wins the battle of the wetware for a while, it seems like, really, I’ve always been that way, and the right-eating person I was a week ago is just a cheap latex suit that I’ve now stepped out of and can’t figure out how to get back in to.

If there’s any consistent, unchanging part of my ego at all, it’s probably the part that’s “shoulding” all the time. When I’m not exercising, I’m telling myself I shouldn’t. When I’m not focusing, I’m telling myself I should. That part seems pretty unswerving about which behaviors are the right ones, whether it’s being confident or working hard or eating healthy food or being nice to the smartboy.

But that part isn’t in control—it’s more like a nagging shrew that lives in the walls than a me unto itself. It seems less solid than whichever me is in control of me right now. Its carping doesn’t even influence who’s driving the meatmobile much, so I’m not sure what its role is other than to judge.

Perhaps the real me is the one that is observing and accepting the lack of a solid, unchanging ego and recognizing the many “mes” that I apparently really am. That me finds the recognition that I am not one thing now and forever both disturbing and freeing. Disturbing because it means that the me who is committed to #100DaysofHealth is yet another temporary controller. Freeing, because it means that the me who doesn’t like to exercise and eat right can also be shed like an old snakeskin at will.