Michel Quoist
MEET CHRIST AND LIVE!

translated by J. F. BERNARD
GILL AND MACMILLAN

5. I want to be Somebody

The other day, my sister, in the heat of an argument, said to me: 'The trouble with you is that you have no personality!'
That upset me a great deal. Nothing hurts me more than to be told that l'm dull and uninteresting, because my greatest ambition has always been to be somebody-a 'personality', exciting and stimulating to be with.
I've thought over the problem, especially with reference to my sister. She's younger than I, and she hasn't had the education I've had. She's less intelligent than I, and she hasn't the variety of talents that I have. And yet, she is a leader. She knows how to get things done, and how to get others to do what she wants. Some of her friends come to her with their problems, and she is somehow able to find the right things to say, so that they go away feeling better. I'm very different.
Torn between jealousy of my sister - whom, none the less, I love very much - and my restless search for a way to become somebody, a leader, a personality, it seems that I've never bothered to acquire the insight that only faith can give. It never occurred to me that God could be interested in my struggle to be important.
This evening, I talked the whole thing over with my parish priest. Now, I see it more clearly, and I fed much better. Now that I am no longer so worried, perhaps I can find the means to become what I want to be. My ambition is perfectly legitimate, but I have been wrong in the way I went about fulfilling it. I will have to find other means.
And, above all, I will have to go about it in an entirely different spirit.

My first mistake has been to confuse personality and originality. As a youngster, very often merely to have my own way, to make my own ideas prevail, I treated the ideas of others with contempt. I thought that in attracting attention to myself, in making myself stand out, I was showing originality-and, therefore, personality.
By the same token, I began to copy people whose minds or behavior I admired. It was as though I was trying to borrow a personality instead of developing one of my own.
Also, during an extended period of rebellion, I wanted to 'be myself'-but in my own way; that is, to follow even my most ridiculous ideas, to express my immediate reactions, to follow my impulses and what I regarded as my 'instincts'. I thought I was free. But a mature personality is harmonious and well integrated, and controls its emotions in order to channel them-and I was merely disorganized and scatter-brained.
At present, I have fallen into the practice of maintaining a careful silence which, to others, must seem somewhat mysterious. The fact is, I don' t speak for fear of being misunderstood and laughed at. It is as though I am paralyzed. I am afraid to speak or to act-and my silence and inactivity allows me to pass myself off as a wise and subtle man. But now I know that my limitations are of my own making.
I know that, beyond myself, there is someone-a person who is held prisoner within me and who is being slowly asphyxiated.
I know that the reason for my failure has been that, out of pride, I wanted, solely through my own efforts, to become someone; to become a god, but without God.
Today, my outlook was purified. I have re-discovered the One whose only wish, from all eternity, is to make me one of his children.
My personality is that which, within myself, makes me unique among men.
It is God's concept of me.
It is God' s image in me.
It is God's love for me - an individual and 'personal' love.

Since my birth, I have had, like every other man, a personality which is different, irreplaceable and which cannot be duplicated. It was given to me in its pristine form, like a piece of marble handed to an artist who must gradually impose on it the shape he has conceived. But I have not given it that shape. Instead, I have worked at it clumsily, disfiguring and deforming it.
I cannot fully develop my personality unless I am linked to all men, who are my brothers; for I am a member of a Body. I belong to a certain time in history, to a certain country, to a particular family and social class and I must develop in accordance with that environment.
I can develop my personality fully only if I collaborate with Jesus. If I work at it merely at the human level, I will remain incomplete, if not permanently deformed. I must become the man whom the Father has planned from all eternity.
I am infinitely more wealthy than I ever thought possible, for I am beyond price. I am unique, and therefore irreplaceable.
Other people need me. But they need the real me, and not the 'personality' that I've tried to manufacture; for what there is in me that is unique is precisely what they must have. If I continue playing games with myself, I am robbing them of what they need. If I offer them something artificial, I am leaving them as hungry as I found them. If I am not myself, something - someone - will be lacking in mankind and in the Body of Christ.
To develop my personality means to establish harmony among my gifts and talents by placing them at the service of Jesus in my brothers. The more I am what Jesus wants me to be, the more that I conform to his plan for me in my daily life, then the more I will have a personality of my own.
Finally, I will become a real 'personality' - when I am filled with Jesus, that is. For, far from undervaluing human nature and trying to discount my talents, Jesus offers me the opportunity to make them truly god-like by allowing their supreme development.
From this standpoint, which is that of faith, I am in a position to understand the true purpose, and the true grandeur, of education. It is to work with a child so as to discover in him the imprint of the living God and, gradually, in dose collaboration with Jesus, to develop the authentic character of the son of whom the Father has dreamed from the beginning of time.
Now that I understand this, I must change my attitude towards other people. What right have I to impose my own ideas on them and to set up my own behavior as a model for them? My duty is not to lead them, or to train them, but, first of all, to respect them. I must respect what they are in themselves, the individual mystery of each one of them, and God' s plan for them in which I must cooperate in all humility.
Every person has something to give me. What is unique in them is necessary to me. In the presence of another, I'm always poor; for the other person always possesses a treasure which I lack.

Forgive me
for wanting to imitate others to the extent that I forget who I am,
for envying their talents so much that I neglect to develop my own.

Forgive me
for the time I spend playing games with my 'personality' 
and for the time I don' t spend in developing my character.

Now, let me forget about the stranger that I was
so that I may find myself;
for I will never know my home unless I leave it, 
and I will never find myself if I refuse to lose myself.

Lord, let me be open to my brothers,
so that, through them, you will be able to visit me as your friend.

For then I will be the person that your Love wants me to be, 
your son, Father, 
and a brother to my brothers.