Life’s a Stage: When Roles Take Over Our Lives

 

While reading the chapter “Who’s Helping?” I found myself very intrigued. The whole idea that the assumption of roles (such as mother, child, doctor, etc.) keeps us from sympathizing with and helping others seems ridiculous. But as I read further I found that my opinion changed drastically. Dass and Gorman present the idea that we adopt roles that we feel comfortable in, such as that of daughter, pastor, or librarian. We use these “fronts” to hide behind our fear, self-doubt, and anxiety. “An anxious, self-protected ego is most comfortable in a familiar role in which it knows exactly what’s expected of it” (Dass 24). Back in high school, freshman year, I did exactly that. Except for my close group of friends who knew who I really was, I was just the smart kid. The girl that ruined the curves on tests. The girl, that whenever her name was mentioned, someone would say “Oh she’s really smart.” I was uncomfortable stepping out of that established role and into another that showed who I really was. I see now that I was dreaded that uneasiness that I would feel once I did. And what if people didn’t like the real me? The self-doubt would then take over.

 

                     

Some of the roles we as humans place ourselves in

 

 

Sophomore year, I began to step out of the “smart girl” role and into others: “volleyball player,” “basketball player,” and even occasionally I was the “outgoing girl who was friends with everyone.” But I spent more of my time as just “Megan.” “With increasing perspective, [I saw] that all of our ego identities, models, and self-images can be useful, but need not be entrapping… As we lighten our attachment to self-image, we find a different vantage point from which to observe who we really are” (Dass 34). My indenities shouldn’t be entrapping, but rather add together to form a reflection of my whole person. I also stopped putting titles on others. Margaret Baird was no longer “gorgeous, perfect, and athletic.” She was just “Marg.” Rachel Ringnald was no longer “tan beauty queen.” She was just “Ray Ray.” I realized that these images and roles I was constructing put more distance between me and others, but “when our models f[ell] away, we [we]re free to simply meet and be together” (Dass 38).

 

    

I went from “Smart Girl” to just “Megan”                                                “Megan” and “Marg”

 

            This weekend as I was walking down Guadalupe, I ran across a band of homeless people sitting on the sidewalk outside Kerby Lane. I realized that I am putting them into roles too. They are the “homeless” and I am the “college student” with a roof over my head and food to eat at every meal. The fact that we view others in roles such as these creates an even bigger distance between us and it is hard to forge a connection and feel empathy for those individuals. When we help others in need, we get satisfaction from doing good, and along the way put other into the roles of “the helped” and we are “the helpers.” We are “buying into, even juicing up, precisely what people who are suffering want to be rid of: limitation, dependency, helplessness, separateness. And that’s happening largely as a result of self image” (Dass 28). Our lack of eye contact and these roles we assume separate “us” from “them,” and can give those we are helping “that feeling of not being seen as whole” (Dass 28).

 

Once we throw off the chains of stereotypes and roles, “we are free simply to be” (Dass 32). I think that that is the best place in life to be. Just free.