Knowing Your Place

Christmas is a time when many of us reflect on our aspirations and remember that we aren't permanently assigned a place in this life.

That's why I've never it liked the expression "know your place." When someone says something about the need to “know one’s place,” he is saying that there is some kind of absolute hierarchy, and that it is the highest priority that each of us know our place in it.

This is like dogs at the local dog park. When a new dog arrives, all the dogs are nervous until it is clear exactly where this dog fits in the hierarchy. Sometimes dogs get so nervous with the uncertainty that they growl, bark or even fight.

We seem to both crave openness and honesty and loathe it, even at the top of the hierarchy. We want people to “be themselves”, but then they do something we don’t like and we wish they were someone else.

The question I’m dying to ask is: “If I can’t be myself, who can I be?”

From this comes the conundrum of our lives: It takes much courage to be ourselves, yet we have no choice about it. If we want to live the life we were born into.