My identity is very important to me--or rather, my identities are very important to me. I find it fascinating that I have so many of them, depending on the situation. I have certain core ideals and beliefs and morals that exist across the identities, but the fact is that there's no way that I could ever make an argument that I have a single, consistent identity. I value telling the truth, but there are situations in which I wouldn't feel that the truth is appropriate. I'm not a violent person by any means, but I can imagine situations in which violence may be the best course of action, I'm always going to do my best to maintain the behaviors that I know are helpful and kind and compassionate, but there are days when I'm turned inside and I miss opportunities to show those traits. I'm pretty easy-going in class with my students, but when someone tries my patience (especially if they do so on purpose), I'm going to act in a different way with them. I think that sometimes we get down on ourselves because we feel that we've somehow betrayed ourselves when a different trait surfaces, when we're not as kind to someone as we wish we had been, when we say something we wish we hadn't said, when we do something we wish we hadn't done. While it may be appropriate sometimes to examine such actions firmly, it also is important to remember that the idea of "who we are" could be expanded to include "who we are in a given situation," while keeping in mind that the person we need to be in situation A may not be the person we need to be in situation B. Life is full of changes and shifts, and a "foolish consistency" isn't going to serve anyone well, least of all ourselves.
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