“All I see is what I should be — happier, prettier…” The wise words of Olivia Rodrigo capture something so many people experience while trying to figure out who they are. But how are we even supposed to define something as huge and constantly changing as identity? We take personality quizzes ranging from Myers-Briggs to “what type of toast are you?” hoping they’ll somehow explain us to ourselves. From the time we are toddlers, we’re asked questions like, “Who do you want to be when you grow up?” as if identity is some fixed destination we’ll eventually arrive at and fully understand. We spend so much time trying to shrink a complicated, evolving experience into a neat little box labeled: “this is who I am.”
But what if we didn’t have to?
What if identity wasn’t something rigid or permanent, but something fluid — something constantly evolving, growing, shifting, and expanding? When we feel pressure to define ourselves through labels or categories, especially ones shaped by socially “normal” expectations, we often end up feeling like we’re failing. We get stuck asking ourselves, “What should I be?” instead of “Who am I right now?”
And the truth is, the answer changes.
Who you are today may not be who you are next year, next month, or even tomorrow. Identity is shaped by experiences, relationships, environments, interests, and growth. Yet so often, we limit ourselves by trying to fit into categories that were created long before we had the chance to define ourselves on our own terms.
As a child, teen, and young adult therapist, identity is something I talk about ALOT with clients. We explore how people want to express themselves and how they want the world to perceive them. But one challenge I see repeatedly is that the search for a “perfect” identity can become more limiting than freeing. I recently had a session with a young person who realized just how restrictive labels and categories felt when they tried to use them to fully explain themselves.
It felt like an epiphany for both of us.
I often think back to my own teenage years and how fast my brain moved all the time. Identity felt like an endless menu of ingredients I had to choose from: pick this style, this personality, this label if you want to be seen as this kind of person. But be careful with the wrong choices you might regret them later. There was this constant pressure whispering in my ear: “Be yourself.” Yet being myself felt less like something natural and more like a formula I was supposed to build from preexisting identity narratives that had already been laid out for me.
I also think back to navigating my sexuality and the process of discovering this part of myself as a teen. There is grief there sometimes. I think about how much more exciting, authentic, and connected life may have felt if I had understood more about my sexuality during my teen and young adult years. At the same time, I hold a lot of compassion for my younger self because the identity narratives I had access to simply did not include being Queer. Looking back, I do not think I was consciously trying to suppress parts of myself or force myself into being “normal.”
It felt more like my brain had already created a roadmap for who I was supposed to be and then continued following it automatically.
There was comfort in the predictability of that path and difficulty slowing down enough to question it. The life in front of me felt like a recipe that had already been prepared and served to me before I ever realized I was allowed to change the ingredients myself. Not because anyone explicitly told me I couldn’t, but because those were the only options I had really been taught to recognize. My brain naturally gravitated toward the path of least resistance, following familiar narratives without fully stopping to ask whether they actually felt good, authentic, or aligned with who I was.
Had identity been represented to me as something more flexible and ever changing and as something that reduced the pressure to discover your “true self” and stick with it forever, I think my experience growing up may have looked very different. Like many people, I chose the ingredients that felt familiar and already mapped out for me: doing well in school, dating boys, being sporty but not too sporty in a way that challenged femininity, going to college, getting married, having children. I knew that recipe well because it was the version of life I saw modeled over and over again.
Eventually, it stopped feeling like a life I had chosen for myself and started feeling more like a carefully prepared script that had been handed to me.
Like a meal thoughtfully plated by someone else, impressive, polished, and socially approved! but one that never really considered my own tastes, needs, or hunger.
I kept trying to convince myself I could learn to enjoy it because everyone around me seemed to view it as the “right” choice. But over time, forcing myself to follow a path that did not fully align with me became exhausting.
What made that process so difficult was that it was not some dramatic overnight realization. It was–
slow. Quiet.
A gradual reworking of puzzle pieces that no longer fit together the way they once seemed to. At the same time, it felt almost forbidden to change course. Shouldn’t I already know who I am? Shouldn’t I already know who I want to date, what I want my life to look like, what path I’m supposed to be on? And if I change now, what will people think?
Maybe identity was never meant to be a final answer.
Maybe it’s better understood as a compass rather than a destination. To me, identity is the ongoing process of noticing what feels authentic, meaningful, safe, exciting, or right to you in the moment. Because who we are is not something we have to perfectly define once and for all. Some versions of ourselves may stay consistent while others shift.
And honestly, there’s something really beautiful about that.
I often wonder how much more accepting and freeing the world could feel if we collectively viewed identity this way — as something naturally evolving rather than something people are expected to permanently define or explain. Maybe there would be less pressure to justify change and less fear around being misunderstood. Maybe “coming out” stories would not carry the same weight because exploration, growth, and evolving self expression would simply be understood as part of being human. Maybe changing careers, outgrowing old friendships, discovering new passions later in life, or realizing a version of yourself no longer fits would feel less like a crisis and more like a natural part of being alive. Imagine how freeing it would feel to exist in a world where people were allowed to evolve openly without needing permission, labels, or proof.
One of my biggest hopes for the clients I work with is that they feel free enough to explore who they are without believing they have to “lock in” a final version of themselves. I want them to try new things, change their minds, evolve, and discover what genuinely feels right for them — not what societal narratives tell them they’re supposed to be.
So instead of asking yourself, “Who should I be?” ask:
Who am I in this moment?
What feels true to me right now?
And how might that grow or change over time?
How would the lyrics of jealousy, jealousy change if we grew up in a world that treated identity as something flexible and evolving instead of something we are supposed to figure out once and hold onto forever? Maybe instead of singing, “All I see is what I should be,” Olivia Rodrigo would sing something more like, “All I see is who I’m becoming.” Maybe there would be less pressure to compare ourselves to these perfectly curated ideas of who we are supposed to be and more space to explore, change, and grow without feeling like we are failing or getting it wrong.
Maybe identity would feel less like a performance and more like what it actually is…a lifelong process of getting to know ourselves.