The Collective And The Individual

“What’s my brand? I need to figure out my brand!!!” the kid was telling me.
I remember that, when I was a teen, these same questions would eat up at me.

Who was I going to be? A good girl? A rebel? A tomboy? A nerd?

“I see what you mean”, I told her.
And then, trying to be an adult, “But you’re not a brand, you’re a person. You see…”

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Being a person today is a complicated thing. We are told that we can be whatever we want to be, yet more than ever we’re supposed to define ourselves early, and clearly.

Society demands that we make it clear who we are, what we love, what we do, what we believe in. But do we even really know? Should we?

We’re pushed to hone in on a few things and to turn these into our narrative and our story.

I once dated a guy who was nice. He loved working out and he loved coffee. He was looking for someone who loved working out and loved coffee. So that together they could work out and have coffee. I looked at his Instagram and there were photos of his work outs and hundreds…