Given that I’m writing a lot on identity, including my forthcoming book Who Am I (April 2026), I thought it would be useful to succinctly define the word.
Our use of the word “identity” in the 21st century is pretty wide, so here’s my attempt to establish a common ground definition:
“Identity is your sense of self that connects who you are as a product of your past with who you wish to be in the future.”
Two important ideas tuck into that that definition. One, your identity has to do with your sense of self, which is multi-faceted. Two, identity has a backward-looking and forward-looking component, or what I call your being and becoming.
Identity is similar to a large hundred and fifty-year-old home. The home is multi-faceted many different rooms and features. It also evolves over time. Its past construction matters, but much more important are the future desires of its occupants. Let’s use this example to illustrate both ideas.
1) Identity is multi-faceted
People have used lots of categories to attempt to break down the different facets of identity. None of these work neatly, because no one lives a compartmentalized life. For example, the fact that you are twenty-nine doesn’t vanish from your identity when you walk into your hospital job where your identity is primarily about being a nurse. All your interactions and emotions during that work day will be specifically mediated through your identity of being twenty-nine, not fifty-nine. Any categories we use to talk about identity eventually break down because IDENTITY (in its grand and broad sense) is really like a soup made up of multiple sub-identities.
To use the example above, a specific house consists of its geographic location, neighborhood, acreage, rooms, windows, flooring, lighting, furniture, and the aesthetic style of its occupants. A particular home may have a cramped and bothersome bathroom situation, but a fantastic backyard with a beautiful view. You can feel annoyed in the bathroom and proud in the backyard, yet the home remains one. The other parts of it are always there, even when not directly in view.
I suggest three categories of identity:
1) Identities of origin.
These include ethnicity, gender, nationality, time and place of birth, parents, and lineage. They also include significant events from your past, such as your alma mater, or that embarrassing incident in seventh grade.
2) Identities of role.
These encompass any relational responsibility you have. These could include your role as an uncle, aunt, son, grandmother, boss, employee, volunteer, colleague, family event-organizer, and taker-out of trash.
3) Identities of affinity.
These are anything someone is passionate about. Identities of affinity include political and religious groups, tastes in music and art, passions in sports, finance, health and fitness. They often elevate an identity of origin or role. For example, someone’s major identities of affinity could include being a New Yorker and their job in theater.
The Key Thing about Multi-Faceted Identity
We must remember that every person’s identity is multi-faceted. When you choose to emphasize one identity of affinity above the rest, this does not erase the other parts of your identity. It repurposes them. To continue the house analogy, you may choose to accent your house’s pool or may glory in the tidy efficiency of your house. The house remains multi-faceted, you have simply focused the house around that one feature.
2) Identity is being and becoming
The human experience of time is woven into our understanding of identity. Humans have a greater capacity for identity formation than, for example, guinea pigs, because our capacity to contemplate our own past and future is much greater. Guinea pigs, for the same reason, have a stronger claim to identity than seaweed.
By being, I mean looking and reflecting backwards. By becoming, I mean anticipating who you wish to be in the future.
This means every person is being and becoming, and every identity marker about that person is being and becoming.
Being is also becoming
Let’s say that Mark is born and raised in Sydney, Australia. That is an identity marker that we would consider more a part of Mark’s being, in the sense that it’s a fixed historical fact. Mark will never have or be able to claim the experience of being born in Delhi, India. His experience, however, of being from Sydney will become something different as he ages. He will progress in his understanding of what that identity of origin means.
A similar reality holds true in the example of the house. The house is located on a specific street in a specific neighborhood. That part of the house’s “identity” can never change or that house would cease to be that house. However, the way someone understands the value and significance of that location and neighborhood will become different over time.
Becoming is based on being
Let’s say that Mark wants to become a lawyer. He did not arrive at that conclusion out of the blue. Mark did not wake up one day, his mind a blank slate, and perceive the desire to “become a lawyer” descend on him with irresistible force. His perception of what that job is, what his skills are, what other possibilities he wishes to avoid, are all part of his being—his past. Mark pursues becoming a lawyer, and certain type of lawyer, because of how he understands himself and his world as a product of his past.
Think about remodeling the one hundred-and-fifty-year-old house. The current occupant wants a new kitchen and to add on a second floor. The house is becoming something new based on the occupant’s vision. Even in this radical process of becoming, however, the new improvements and additions are all based on what the house was already—its being. Remodels are based on the given and already existing structure of the house. If you tear down the house and build a new one, you would no longer refer to it as the same house.
The Key Thing about Identity as Being And Becoming
We must remember that every part of every person’s identity is both stable and changing (being and becoming). Objective parts of a person’s identity (like age or ethnicity) are more stable than subjective parts, but identity has to do with your sense of self, which means even these objective identities are always changing in that your perception of them changes. Likewise, more subjective parts of your identity (like your favorite dessert) can change quickly, but are still rooted in fixed and stable truths from your past experiences.[1]
The Real Question Remains
My comments above have been an attempt to clarify what we mean, or perhaps what we should agree to mean when we use the word identity:
“Identity is your sense of self that connects who you are as a product of your past with who you wish to be in the future.”
But this definition provides no guidance on how one should go about identity formation. I propose the best way to do so is through becoming a Christian and growing into the image of Jesus. You are given a new identity that you grow into. As a Christian, you then become more of who you were made to be. Christian identity formation works because if will give you the most grounded sense of being and the most transcendent path to becoming.
[1] See here for a longer discussion of these two components of identity
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