Who would you be if you were the only person in the world?
This messy, keep-you-up-at-night question doesn’t have quick answers. It might take a lifetime to figure out.
But right now is as good a time as any to workshop some answers. Especially if you’ve managed to take a few days away from the daily hustle and ego trips long enough to hear the quiet humming of your broccoli.
Yes, broccoli. We’ll get to your broccoli. But first, let’s talk about identity.
Our identities are not our own
They’re contaminated and watered down by all the conscious and unconscious expectations the world dumps on us.
Some parts of our identity are thrust upon us. Even before we are born, we are neatly divided into human-made boxes. Indian-Japanese. Hindu-Muslim. Rich-Poor. First World-Third World. Baniya-Kayasth.1
And God forbid if those boxes touch!
The rest of our identity, we jigsaw together as we uncover more human-made expectations. In fact from the minute we can form half-unintelligible words, we are asked, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?”
Even though it is phrased as an open-ended question, it isn’t. It’s a multiple-choice test:- Communist or Capitalist? CEO or Shopkeeper? Doctor or Engineer? Married or Married? One child or Two children? – and there’s no option for ‘none of the above.’
As we continue to shoehorn ourselves into prefabricated moulds, a tiny part of our true self might sneak out to enjoy the sunshine. But we shame it, ignore it or diss it. It quickly scurries away and burrows itself into the dark recesses of our soul.
Over time, bits and pieces of the person we were wired to be, start chafing off. And we are left with a nagging suspicion that we’ve let everyone down – our families, our bosses, even the world.
But the truth is that the world doesn’t even notice us.
The only person we’ve disappointed is ourselves. All we are left with is our unrealized potential and regrets of a half-lived life.
We internalise that just being ourselves is not enough. Because we’ve been told that we must DO something FIRST to BECOME someone.
I want to tell you that if we get out of our own way and fully lean into who we truly are, then the whole world will not only accommodate us but also miraculously enable us.
That’s why, as the new year begins, I invite you to try a thought experiment
Imagine you’re the only person in the world.
No one to tell you what to think, how to feel, and who to be.
No books, podcasts, or gurus dishing out truth bombs.
No thought leaders pushing 21-day boot camps.
No right way or wrong way.
No judgement.
No rules.
Now ask yourself.
Would you still write, paint, or speak on social media if there were no one to like, follow, or reshare? If you feel compelled to create even when no one’s watching, maybe your true self has things to share. And that thing that you feel compelled to create? Maybe that’s the voice of your true self. In the new year, strive to create what your true self desires. Even badly. After all, ‘badly’ is just a human-made construct.
Would you still work 80-hour weeks if there were no one to impress with a shiny designation, big car and fat paycheck? If you feel driven to work on something even when there’s no upside, that might be the mission you were born for.
As you spend more time with this experiment, you might realize that many of your thoughts are not your own. They have been fed to you, designed to fatten your ego – like foie gras, force-fed to satiate society’s gluttony. The thoughts that don’t feel force-fed, that resonate at an emotional level, are your real thoughts. Write them down. Let them wash over you. Digest them and start to understand what makes you, you.
When you plumb the depths of this experiment, you will experience an emotional roller coaster. Peace will turn into fear, fear into panic and then, boredom. But one quiet Sunday afternoon, a tsunami of loneliness will make you double over in pain. A loneliness so excruciating that you will want to tear your arm off just so you can pretend you have someone to hold on to. At that moment, notice who you miss. These people are your tribe. Say sorry and promise to be nicer to them, at least for the next few days.
So how do we uncover our true selves as we go about our daily lives? We must listen to it.
Listen to your broccoli
Annie Lamott calls our small inner voice ( intuition or subconscious) that tells us who we are and what to do, broccoli. She says we ignore it like we ignore broccoli on our plates.
We drown it out with the roar of outside voices – society, algorithms, shoulds and should nots. But as we turn down the volume, our inside voice gets louder and clearer- our broccoli starts speaking.
“Listen to your broccoli, and your broccoli will tell you how to eat it”
—Bird by Bird, Annie Lamott
I had ignored my broccoli most of my life. I was a good girl who followed all the rules – studied hard, finished my homework, listened to my parents and teachers – except four times.
Four times I tuned the world out and listened to my broccoli. These four decisions have shaped my life, my career, and my happiness levels. I wrote about two of them here and here.
Today, I share the third.
My broccoli story
When I was five, I was diagnosed with Vitiligo – a condition where skin loses pigment. Vitiligo isn’t as medically debilitating, as it is socially stigmatising.
The next 14 years became a mission of endless treatments – bitter tonics, medication, dietary restrictions, injections and operations, to reverse this ‘social deviance.’
The subtext of this entire period was clear- I am not ok. I need to be fixed.
Then after a particularly grueling treatment left scars on my neck, my broccoli spoke up. It told me to stop all treatments pronto. And I listened.
This was the first independent decision of my life. When decisions come from our inner voice, there is no disturbance, no ‘what ifs’. I felt no fear, no resistance, no need to second guess myself, just pure conviction.
Since I was now released from doctor visits and medication, I had free time to truly live life and enjoy everything it has to offer. Ironically, as vitiligo spread through my entire body, my insides started healing and reminded me that I don’t need ‘fixing’.
Embracing our true selves does not mean sanyas (retirement from worldly life)
It means quieting our inner chatter and getting out of our own way. It means synching our days and lives to the rhythm of who we truly are.
This is not some woo-woo unscientific idea. Each of us carries a unique DNA sequence. Even identical twins are not DNA carbon copies. This DNA blueprint shows up as effortless strengths in childhood – things we enjoy, that make us lose track of time, that come naturally to us but are hard for others. Things we see that others don’t. Things we feel that others can’t. These are our unique gifts to the world.
And when we deny these gifts, we withhold from the world, something only we can provide. What can be worse than this?
Embracing our true selves doesn’t mean that we don’t need people – this thought experiment is not about isolation. It is about shining a light on our true self that is hiding in the shadows. We need people who don’t smother or water down our essence. And we, in turn, must hold the same space for others.
So, I hope we all enter the new year a little less distracted, a little less noisy, and with ears attuned to the frequency of our broccoli.
Happy New Year and I’ll see you on the other side.
1Two castes found in India