To be, or to not be...that is the question.

Identity. It's the big "I" word that inherently lies within each of us. I consider my most active roles as I sit here in a candlelit room, tucked away in an attic in a rural town in Canada amongst the hours deep into Friday night:

• female
• student and employee
• Canadian and British
• daughter, sister, cousin, niece, grandaughter, friend

These are tangible parts of my identity by means of gender, heritage, nationality and family. But other parts of my identity are cornerstones of my personality and sense of role in both personal relations and community. Sometimes these identities to not accentuate, or even align, with each other. Does this make me a hypocrite?

One of the most obvious examples dates back to prehistoric days: high school. Employed by the local public health unit under a provincial grant, I was a "peer leader" promoting smoke-free environments. Part of this employment was a personal commitment to advocating a tobacco-free lifestyle. Less than five years later, I just finished a cigarette before writing this first blog post. What transitioned a strong and public profile as an advocate for smoke-free Ontario to becoming a smoker? This has been a contradiction (for lack of a better word) within myself that admitting to comes without ease.

This strong example is also the reason I have withheld my public admittance of other personal identities like religion and politics. Although I have opinions and experiences with both, I do not openly identify as anything. I have abstained. This choice has come out of caution of public flack.

A few months ago my father called me a socialist. I was offended. Not because he was, admittedly, right. Rather I was offended that someone would compile my opinions and formulate an identity for me when I had not openly done so first. Later I realized that everyone does this to varying degrees, including myself, whether we admit it or not. Above all, the idea of image resonates strongly with my as I move forward into more commitments involving leadership.

The accountability I have striven to ambiguously avoid comes at costs. These costs are both hard to quantify and qualify. True to human nature, I know it is easier to be less active in roles and pass off neutrality. At what point to the costs of conscious passivity outweigh the larger significances at hand? By this, I mean, I often wonder if one (I) should "suck it up" and move from the margins to a cause that one (I) believe(s) in. This thought has an added weight when one considers the democratic approach so embedded in society (and politics) today.

I have not truly reconciled my promotion of anti-smoking in high school and my "guilty pleasure" in cancer sticks today. Of many people, I am critically aware of the harmful impacts and choose to negate them for cigarettes themselves. I enjoy smoking. I enjoy a deep breath of air, and one especially coupled with nicotine. I do not foresee myself as a smoker for my entire life, so in part I feel as though being "lost in translation" is okay, because this is "just a phase." Yet, my choices indicate that I am heading for the path I do not want to follow. (As a side note: how interesting to note that I criticize politicians for their focus on short-term policies instead of long, yet follow the same suit).

Reconciliation is not an easy task. It never will be. In part, I am at a loss. The larger message to take home is not of continued passitivity, in my case, nor publicly admitting these truths as excuses to dismiss further consideration because they may be "hard" (which, believe me, they are). Rather, the overarching and ever-continuous question: how.