And so I could stop being who others wanted me to be ...

It happens to me many times that I do many things to be approved. Since I was a child, I wanted to be approved by my teachers, professors, parents, siblings and sometimes even people I didn't know. My necessity to control everything leads me to want to control what others think of me as well. That's when I start to wear certain masks that make me look like what those I want to please want me to look like. They can, at times, be good things, like wanting to be a good son helping at home or being a good student by studying harder. The problem occurs when so many times I try to approach people by doing things that are definitely not who I am.

Trying to impress a boy / girl by pretending to be someone I am not so that they will be interested in me. Or trying to impress some supposed friend that I should keep him close so that he does not speak ill of me. Other times too, I just want to pretend to be someone to be approved by my Instagram followers or society, following the social currents of the moment and wanting to look like the rest to fit in. When I got to know Jesus, however, I began to realize that I really did not know who I was. I was totally dizzy from pleasing the world's stares, I couldn't even please my own. I didn't recognize myself.

They asked me the following question: Who are you? To which they told me the following: There are different ways to find the answer to this question. You could try to find it in others by putting a poll on Instagram or asking people. In that case, it is clearly other people who make up my supposed person, which I am sure is not the real one. If I want to answer who I am by going to others, I would become a very vulnerable person before their eyes. My happiness would last as long as it lasts for others to accept me, or for the likes to last. I seek approval from others and spend all my energy indulging in their judgments.

I could also look for the answer in myself, analyzing what is good or bad for me. Looking for the situations that please myself. Unfortunately this is not the convenient way to do it either, since I would get stuck in material pleasures. Self-satisfaction with the carnal can bring joy, but this joy lasts as long as it takes to be hungry after a rich meal, to be sleepy after a good nap, or to have a hangover after an outing. The true satisfaction is then found in answering who I am by answering another question: Who is Jesus? By trying to answer this question is that I was able to achieve a greater identity, I was able to understand more about who I am. "In you is the fountain of life, and by your light we see our light" (Psalm 36; 10) To know more about Jesus you have to pray more. Acquiring certain constancy in prayer is what gives me a greater knowledge of who Jesus is, and in this way God shows me who I am. Because He has known me from eternity and created me.

"Lord, you probe me and you know me, you know if I sit or get up, from afar you perceive what I think, you realize if I walk or if I rest, and all my steps are familiar to you." (Psalm 139; 1-3).

- identity in Christ -

The tranquility that comes from knowing that Jesus knows me more than I know myself and loves me exactly as I am, with my virtues but also with those defects, gives me immense freedom. It really allows me to be authentic, be myself. Because I no longer care about the gaze of others or my own gaze towards me, but simply the gaze of God, who as a merciful Father always accepts me, even if I sin against Him, and wants the best for me at all times. He wants me to be Holy, and I want that way too. For this reason, I feel that Jesus invites me to keep my prayer constant. To chat every day with Him from heart to heart. And so I don't get dizzy with the world's constant need to respond to who I am. And focus rather on truly knowing Jesus to acquire that happiness that nothing and no one takes away from you, because

I trust my Lord.