Doing and Being: The Mirror and the Mystery

Most people define themselves by what they do during the course of their lives.

We are taught to build resumes, not reflect on essence. Our modern world reinforces this: jobs, roles, projects, accomplishments—they become our identity’s scaffolding. For example, my foundation provides a platform to conduct activities that contribute to saving orangutans. It gives purpose. It gives shape to time. It gives me something to say when someone asks, “So, what do you do?”

But let us pause, if only for a breath, and ask a deeper question:

Is what we do really who we are?

When we peel back the busyness and ask simply, "Who are you?"—the silence that follows is often uneasy. Not because the question is meaningless, but because most of what we quickly offer as an answer is not the truth. At best, it is a story, a useful fiction we tell ourselves to keep the ego intact.

“I’m a conservationist.”

“I’m a mother.”

“I’m a CEO.”

“I’m a 25-year-old white woman from Nebraska.”

These are not untrue. They are descriptors. Labels. Demographic metadata.

But let me be clear: You are not your labels.

You are not your age, not your skin color, not your address or achievements. You are not even your memories.

When I ask you, “Who are you?” you are likely to respond in language. But language is a net cast across the ocean of consciousness, and it never pulls up the whole sea. Words carry both denotation (their dictionary meaning) and connotation (their cultural shadows). What one culture hears in “white” or “old” or even “self” may be profoundly different than what another does. And so even in conversation, we are constantly misaligned in our understanding of identity.

What remains when the words fall away?

When the stories unravel?

When the ego takes a seat in silence?

Being

This is where the practice of being comes in.

Meditation.

Prayer.

Mindful walking.

Deep listening.

Even stillness beneath a tree.

In these quiet acts of presence, we loosen our grip on the story. The mind, so trained to define, begins to dissolve its definitions. And what emerges is not a sentence, not a label, but a state: a subtle, shimmering awareness.

Here, identity becomes something else entirely.

You realize:

“I am nothing, and I am all, simultaneously—as a quantum state.”

You are the witness of your doing.

You are the space in which thoughts arise.

You are the breath behind the voice, the silence beneath the song.

You are not the dancer, nor the dance—

you are the moment they become one.

The Paradox

You are not fixed.

You are unfolding.

You are not a noun.

You are a verb in motion,

and yet… stillness itself.

This is why the question of “who am I?” will never have a final answer.

Because you are changing. Growing. Dying and being born again—sometimes in the same afternoon. The self is a wave, not a stone.

And yet, there is a part of you—call it soul, field, awareness—that does not cling to the labels. It is the part that observes without judgment. It watches the doing. It abides in being.

That is the one worth knowing.

The Invitation

So I invite you, dear reader, to hold your story gently. Love what you do, yes. Let it give your life structure and momentum. But do not mistake it for your essence.

To know yourself is not to define yourself—but to meet yourself anew in each moment.

Let the doing arise from the being—not the other way around.

Sit with the question: Who am I?

Let it unravel you.

Let it remake you.

Let it leave you, finally,

at peace with not knowing.

And in that peace… you just might remember who you’ve always been.