Becoming Who You Are: The Existential Imperative of Self-Discovery
So, you’re sitting there, mid-life crisis brewing, staring into the abyss and wondering: “What’s the point of it all?” You’ve tried all the usual suspects—career success, relationships, self-help books, even that ill-fated yoga retreat. But here you are, with a gnawing feeling that something’s still missing. It’s as if life itself is a poorly written plotline that’s in desperate need of a rewrite.
Enter: Nietzsche, the master of turning your existential dread into an existential imperative.
In Ecce Homo, Nietzsche throws down a challenge: become who you are. It’s a call to arms, urging you to shed the layers of societal conditioning, expectations, and all the suffocating “shoulds” that have been shoved down your throat since birth. It’s not just self-discovery—it’s self-creation. Sounds liberating, right? But here’s the catch: Nietzsche was fully aware that most of us are tangled up in a world that doesn’t particularly care about our quest for authentic selfhood. Society, with its endless rules, norms, and Instagram filters, prefers conformity. It loves a good, predictable cog in the machine. But Nietzsche? He’s handing you a sledgehammer and saying, “Break it.”
The Existential Imperative: Becoming Who You Are
“Become who you are” sounds like a simple enough slogan for a motivational poster, but Nietzsche’s version has teeth. To him, it means unearthing your truest nature—the one buried under years of being told what’s ‘right,’ what’s ‘normal,’ and what’s ‘acceptable.’ It’s not about finding some pre-determined self waiting for you like a treasure at the end of a rainbow. No, it’s about creating yourself. You’re not born you; you become you.
But how do you “become who you are” when you’re living in a world that rewards sameness? Society has expectations. It loves labels and roles, and it’s much easier to comply with these than to go off-script and risk the backlash of being different, or—gasp—authentic. Nietzsche’s challenge comes with the risk of being cast out, misunderstood, or even lonely. But he argues that this risk is worth taking. Why? Because anything less is a life half-lived.
Positive Psychology: The Silver Lining of Self-Discovery
But before you go charging off into the Nietzschean wilderness, ready to dismantle everything in your life, let’s temper that existential angst with a little positive psychology. While Nietzsche might have been all about the struggle, modern psychology gives us a few tools to make that struggle a little more bearable.
Positive psychology isn’t about being happy all the time (spoiler alert: that’s impossible). It’s about finding meaning, fulfillment, and ultimately flourishing. The concept of self-actualization, popularized by Abraham Maslow, aligns quite well with Nietzsche’s notion of becoming who you are. Self-actualization is about realizing your potential, not based on external benchmarks, but on internal growth. It’s about chasing your own ideals, not the ones society has handed you.
In this sense, we can reconcile Nietzsche’s call with positive psychology by focusing on the idea that fulfillment doesn’t come from fitting into the societal mold—it comes from knowing yourself, and better yet, creating yourself. This means not being trapped by what others expect, but instead finding joy in who you are becoming.
Reconciling the Dynamic Self with Societal Expectations
Now, here’s the tricky part. Society loves to sell you a fixed identity. Whether it’s “successful entrepreneur,” “loving spouse,” or “Instagram yogi,” you’re expected to find your lane and stick to it. But Nietzsche and psychology both remind us that the self isn’t static. It’s dynamic. Ever-changing. Today’s version of you is different from yesterday’s, and tomorrow’s? Well, who knows what that person will look like.
The problem is, society doesn’t always like dynamic. It prefers a nice, tidy package with a label it can understand. That’s where the conflict comes in. The trick is in recognizing that while society will always try to pin you down, it doesn’t get the final say. You do. And honestly, the only thing you should be conforming to is your own growth. Yes, it’s going to feel uncomfortable. Yes, people might tell you you’ve changed (spoiler: that’s kind of the point). But as Nietzsche would remind us, it’s far better to be an evolving, growing version of yourself than a stagnant shell of what society wants you to be.
The Final Takeaway: A Fulfillment You Won’t Believe
If you’re still wondering “what’s the point of it all,” the answer lies in you. Not the “you” that’s been crafted by years of social conditioning, but the raw, untapped version of yourself that’s waiting to be created. Sure, it’s terrifying to throw off the mask and risk being seen for who you are—especially when you’re not quite sure what that even means yet. But it’s also exhilarating. As Nietzsche would argue, anything less is a betrayal of your own potential.
So, what’s the point of it all? The point is you. Becoming you. A version of you that doesn’t conform, doesn’t stagnate, and doesn’t apologize for existing. And trust me, when you finally get a taste of what it means to live that authentically, you’ll wonder how you ever lived any other way.
Now, grab that sledgehammer and get to work.