The Roles we play

The world keeps spinning, and lately I have been so immersed in connecting with nature and deeper within myself. It has taken me over thirty years, countless mistakes, and what I now call learning experiences to arrive here — in this space of remembering. A space where I can finally see beyond who I was told to be and begin uncovering who I always was.

The quiet moments outdoors have been teaching me more than any book ever could. Yet, funnily enough, I have also been rereading The Alchemist. There is a line that struck me — that we remember our soul mission as children, before the noise, before the programming, before the forgetting began. It made me pause and ask myself: what did I know back then?

I can vividly remember being around nine or ten, wanting to be a hippy — free, barefoot, and draped in flower power everything. I never fully embraced the flower-covered clothes, but looking at my life now, I realise I became a softer, more grounded version of that vision. Still free, still wild, but rooted. It is wild to think we did know who we wanted to be when we were young, but somewhere along the way, that knowing fades.

We start to play roles that were never truly ours — roles we inherited long before we could speak. Even before birth, upon conception, we are given an identity: the eldest, the middle, the youngest. Each position comes with invisible rules — the eldest, the helper, the pleaser, the responsible one; the middle, often lost between worlds, mothered by the older sibling, searching for identity; the youngest, the baby, wrapped in affection and expected to stay light and easy.

And we grow up still playing out these roles, not because they define who we are, but because they have been woven so deeply into our environment. Then we add even more: the achiever, the shy one, the loud one. By adulthood, we have built a tower of labels so tall we can barely see our own reflection. Then comes the next layer — astrology, human design, personality types. Suddenly, we are not just carrying our family hierarchy, but the weight of cosmic and societal hierarchies too.

But maybe that is the point. Maybe we are meant to go through all of these identities so that one day we can strip them back, one by one, until what remains is raw and true — the soul’s first whisper. Because our purpose does not have to be grand. It does not have to mean stopping wars or creating revolutions. It might be as simple as being a kind parent, or the stranger who smiles and lifts someone’s spirit without even knowing it.

Our purpose is uniquely ours. But until we shed the roles that no longer serve us, until we can see which parts still fit and which belong to the past, we wander aimlessly — mistaking who we have become for who we were meant to be. Not all roles are bad. Think of life as a game, where some levels are meant to be cleared before we move on. Or like cleaning your home — not every item needs to stay, but once you clear the clutter, the pieces that matter have space to shine.

So maybe our task is not to become something new, but to remember. To return to that child who already knew. To the soul who came here with a mission, before the world told us who to be.