Who are we?

Life is a strange concept, isn't it? Who are we? What defines us? What makes us want to draw breath into our lungs? What do we find pleasure in? Who are we and who do we want to become? A friend of mine has recently challenged me to question who I am at the core of my being. We all know what we like, what we dislike, who we care about, what we value and what we believe; but who we are? now that is a hard thing to put your finger on. I've got to say my life doesn't really reflect who I want to be or what I value or even what I enjoy doing. I'm consumed with the stresses of this world and I find myself continually going through the motions, trying to get through the next class, trying to meet the next deadline. I wake in the morning go about my routine and prepare for the day, I sit in lectures that I would often rather not be sitting in and I just power through, I push and I push just to be bombarded with the next thing I have to do. I rush around the house, around town, and around campus, nose to the pavement just pushing forward, and for what? What is my purpose? What do I have a passion for? Where do I find contentment and sheer joy? I busy myself with all that must be done because quite frankly it has to be done; yet even when I do have "free time" I just busy myself with useless, pointless things because these things keep me from crying out in my frustration, they keep me from pain, and guilt, they keep me safe, deluded and miserable. Well the first step to change is admitting you have a problem; and I have a big one, I'm living my life as if I were dead inside. So, lets start with a reflection on what it is that I believe, I believe that I was knit together in my mother's womb by a omnipresent, omniscient God. A God who created the heavens and the earth and who set up the laws of nature which govern our planet. I believe that God instructed man to take care of His creation; which by the way I feel we have completely failed to do. I believe that God sent His only son to this earth; where he lived, taught, healed, died a brutal painful death and raised to life after three days. I believe that Jesus was completely man and completely God, and that the act of sacrificing his holy and perfect life allows us to enjoy eternal life not only free from the punishment we deserve but spent in the presence of God. I believe that since God loves and forgives us, that we are to love and forgive those around us and that we are to live selfless lives focused on a relationship with God and other human beings. So there you have it my beliefs in a nutshell, and since these are my beliefs I should live by them and others should see my beliefs reflected in everything that I do, right? Right, but the problem is that I'm imperfect, selfish, and lazy. I will never be perfect, but I'm trying to venture down a path where my life will reflect my beliefs and where my beliefs will present themselves in tangible passions, and that life will be hard and imperfect but life will be real, authentic, and beautiful. So I choose to pick my nose up off the pavement and to open my eyes to the world around me, to cry for those who suffer, to bleed out in the streets, to be undignified, to stumble, to fall, and to get back up again and dance in the warmth of the sunshine.