Who Am I?

I often ask myself the question "What do I want to be when I grow up?" I am 31 and I still don't know the answer to what I want to BE. I am up. I still need to grow a lot, no doubt about it, but what am I growing toward?

I was journaling by hand recently and wondering what I should focus on, even just for now. What am I gonna be when I grow up and what am I gonna do while I'm waiting?

And that's just it, I have this feeling that I'm waiting, rather than doing the things now. "When will my life begin?" floats through my brain.

Well, my life began 31 years ago. I can't be waiting for something. So then there's now to look at. So what AM I doing? and who am I anyway? 

I am always having a battle with my thoughts and emotions, and I recently have been trying to notice them and not own them. The thoughts don't have to be invited in for tea. I get to decide which ones stay and which ones go. I am not my thoughts.

My emotions often get the better of me. I don't think of myself as ruled by my emotions, which has gotten the better of me, because I didn't see it coming. I think of myself as WAY intellectual. Not smart, just very intellect driven. But it turns out I have emotions too and they call a lot of the shots and that's not a good thing. I have been trying to keep them in check. But it turns out they can't be kept it check, only observed and noticed. I can't turn them off and I certainly mustn't let them control me so much. I am not my emotions.

So as I come to that realization I feel empty. If I am not my thoughts and my feelings then what am I? A hollow shell is how it feels. Haha, who cares how it feels?

I know, I am not my thoughts and I am not my feelings. I am my actions. But how do I decide what actions are worth taking?

Of course, of course, it all comes back to the Lord. His Word tells me what actions are worth taking. But I am no puppet. The Lord cannot work through me without my help.

It feels right that there should be this emptying out of self. I currently feel devoid of self and of life. I am not my anything. I am not. As much as this feeling really sucks, I know that it's necessary.

I am sure there are passages in the Heavenly Doctrine that speak about how we cringe at the idea of the Lord coming closer because we feel the loss of self, and yet the highest angels feel life as their own more than anyone else. I wish I could find the passage(s) I'm thinking about but this is another one of a slightly different ilk:

Who has any other feeling or perception than that when he thinks he thinks from himself, that when he wills he wills from himself, and that when he speaks and acts he speaks and acts from himself? But it is from a law of Divine Providence that man should not know otherwise, since without such feeling and perception, he could not receive, or appropriate any thing to himself, or produce any thing from himself, thus he would not be a recipient of life and an agent of life from the Lord. He would be like an automaton, or an image without understanding and will, standing with hands hanging down, in expectation of influx, which would not be imparted; for life, in consequence of non-reception and non-appropriation on man's part, would not be retained, but would pass through, whence man, from being alive, would become as it were dead, and from being a rational soul would become irrational, thus either a brute or a stock. For he would be without the delight of life, the delight which every one has from receiving, appropriating, and producing as if from himself; and yet delight and life act in unity, for take away all the delight of life, and you will become cold and die. (Apocalypse Explained 1138:4)