Who Am I?

Somehow, my body has gotten used to the schedule that I pretty much keep 6 days a week, and I've woken up within 3 minutes of 7:19 the last 3 or 4 days in a row, even without my alarm clock. Fortunately (depending how you look at it), I've been staying up late enough that I have been able to go right back to sleep most of the time. Yesterday, for whatever reason, I was awake just long enough to have a few lines of Les Mis run through my head before drifting back off.

From Act I, I had Jean Valjean's voice echoing in my mind:

Who am I?
Can I conceal myself for evermore?
Pretend I'm not the man I was before?
And must my name until I die
Be no more than an alibi?
Must I lie?
How can I ever face my fellow men?
How can I ever face myself again?
My soul belongs to God, I know
I made that bargain long ago
He gave me hope when hope was gone
He gave me strength to journey on

Who am I? Who am I?

Interesting that my subconscious should pick this song. If you've been reading for a while, you'll remember that I had a post last fall with this same title. That was before I'd started writing about songs stuck in my head, which is kind of a fun little twist.

My original thought from this song was to go back and rewrite the post from last year to update with who I am today. As I reread it though, I was still very much able to identify myself in those lines. I have experienced quite a bit since then, and have undoubtedly changed in many ways, but I'm still very much me at the core.

I did a little bit of reading about Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs as I was thinking about this topic. I don't pretend to be a psychology buff, and I know that I have friends who understand this all much better than I do, but I was able to identify a few "deficiency needs" that I could focus more on meeting in order to be happier and better able to approach "being needs".

Combining Maslow with some of the most fundamental things I believe, self-actualization is the motivation placed within each of us to live up to our divine potential. I am more than a "24601", and I'm happiest when I can remember that and try to live up to it.

Who are you?