On my first day of college, I showed up wearing a T-shirt and a black tie over it. Why? Because I thought it was a “move.” I was going to stand out and be the “t-shirt and tie” guy.
This cringe-worthy (and, thankfully, short-lived) moment in my college career reminds me of that well-known “Hamlet” line: “To thine own self be true.”
Funny enough, this statement comes in one of literature’s earliest recorded “going to college” speeches. Polonius is a windbag sending his son off to university with a bunch of basic advice, and toward the end he delivers the classic line with more context than we usually get: “This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man.”
Polonius might be a bore, but he’s getting at perennial questions every college student begins to ask: Who am I? Who am I going to be? How will I be perceived by others? Without employing the modern language for it, he’s talking about the issue of identity.
College is a time when you’re figuring out who you are in new ways. It is junior high all over again. Throughout high school you were likely known by some defining characteristic: soccer player, church kid, gamer, cheerleader, nerd.
But now, you show up on campus and everybody has to start over. You’ve gone from a place where you were known to a place where you are unknown, forced to answer the “Who am I?” question all over again. It’s easy to show up and lose yourself in the process of finding yourself in college (hence, my t-shirt and tie).
The question “Who am I?” isn’t just about your hobbies and fashion sense, but usually cuts to the core of how you think about your place in the world and your value in it. It grounds your sense of self and guides the decisions you make.
Getting an Identity
In ancient societies, personal identity wasn’t up for grabs. Your vocation, spouse, and social class were all determined by your parents, especially your dad. From your earliest days you knew who you were, and that identity never changed. You had a role, and the only question was whether you would play it well or play it poorly.
In our contemporary culture, we often define and understand ourselves by personal achievements, romantic relationships, vocational success, or, increasingly, an internally-felt sense of “self.”
Working with students over the years, I’ve discovered that underneath someone’s schedule, extra-curriculars, friend groups, and everything else, there is a secret mantra that they’re repeating, sometimes without even recognizing it:
“I am my GPA.”
“I am my politics.”
“I am my dating relationships.”
“I am my hookup count.”
“I am my friends/fraternity/sorority.”
“I am my internships/job prospects.”
“I am my physique.”
“I am my follower count.”
“I am my bank account.”
Of course, all of these mantras are a recipe for anxiety, instability, and deformity.
If you are your GPA, if your worth and identity come from success in the classroom, then any failure is not just an academic failure; it strikes at the very center of who you are and your value in the world. You must do whatever it takes to maintain your identity, be it overworking, lying, or cheating. Folks who outperform you become competitors you envy, and people who don’t match your achievement are failures whom you judge.
One young man I knew came to me distraught and furious about his current academic performance. Back home he was the smartest kid in class. At university, not so much. The realization that others could do with ease the assignments he agonized over was crushing.
One of the chief challenges you’re going to have in college is to avoid building your identity on any of these existential sand traps and getting lost within them. The identity you chase becomes a master you serve. It always demands more while also giving less because you are trying to find security and meaning in something that was never designed to provide it.
Crucified With Christ
What’s the alternative? Think about your identity the same way that Paul did—in light of your union with Christ.
Before Paul met Jesus, he had a very clear sense of who he was. He was a Jew, Benjaminite, Pharisee, righteous observer of the law – so faithful to the traditions of his ancestors that he was actually willing to hate, persecute, and prosecute unto death those whom he saw threatening that faith (Philippians 3). But then Paul met Jesus and had a revolutionary encounter that upended his whole self consciousness.
When Jesus confronted Paul on the road to Damascus, Paul experienced Jesus’ forgiveness and mercy and was transformed. He understood that to be a Christian is to be united with Christ and to have Christ be the source of your identity and your self.
What does it mean to root your identity in Christ?
What happens when you get married? You become united with your spouse, and what is theirs becomes yours, and what’s yours becomes theirs. If you have debt, they have debt. If they are wealthy, you’re wealthy. If they’re royalty, you become royalty.
The same thing is true with us and Jesus: when you put your faith in him, you are united with him. His status, his reality, his life, his death, his resurrection glory – these all become yours.
In the book of Galatians, Paul addresses believers who were being told that in order to gain right standing before God, they had to follow all of the Jewish laws, functionally becoming Jewish. They were being tempted to look towards their religious performance to secure their status and sense of self as Christians. Paul sets them straight.
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose (Galatians 2:20-21).
Paul says that because he is united to Christ, his old self has died and he has a new sense of self, one that is entirely determined by who he is in Jesus. In a sense, it is Jesus living out his life in him.
In his letter to the Philippians, after recounting his spiritual resume, Paul says, “whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ…I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord” (Philippians 3:7-8).
Paul is saying that his old spiritual attempts to establish his sense of self—even those good ones like keeping the law—are no longer the source of his security. Instead, he has a new identity originating from union with Jesus.
To the church in Corinth, Paul wrote, “And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, ‘Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.’” (1 Corinthians 1:30-31)
The Corinthians were a church of up-and-coming climbers who were trying to get status and an identity through all sorts of things. They were especially fond of identifying themselves with particular teachers in order to have the appearance of philosophical wisdom or insight.
But Paul tells them that because of their union with Christ, they have access to all the holiness, righteousness, and wisdom they need. They can stop jockeying against each other for position.
Paul goes further in the book of Ephesians. Christians in Ephesus were surrounded by a pagan culture with false gods, emperors, power, and more. Paul reminds them that “in Christ,” they are “blessed…with every spiritual blessing,” which includes being predestined, adopted, redeemed, forgiven, and made heirs (Ephesians 1:3-11).
Paul was so secure in his relationship with Jesus, his love for Jesus and his union with Christ that Paul didn’t even fear death. All that death would do is give him more of Jesus. He could spend himself in ministry and say, “to live is Christ, to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21).
Union with Christ and Your First Day of College
What does all of this mean for a college freshman? It means that when you show up on campus this fall, if you are “in Christ,” you have nothing to prove. You have the freedom to show up, grow, discover, and become who God truly made you to be with security and assurance. You can live out of a bigger, deeper truth. Ironically enough, you can go out and take risks!
You can go to class and work for good grades not to prove your worth, but simply because it’s a good thing to develop your God-given mind so as to better live for him. You can learn about God’s world not just to be the smartest kid in class, but because the world is beautiful and the truth is good.
You don’t have to go looking for friends who are cool enough to assure you that you’re cool too. You don’t have to worry that if you don’t secure the right internship or a place in the right fraternity or sorority that you’ll never make the connections you need. You can just go make friends for their own sake, befriending them as Jesus befriends you.
You don’t have to find a girlfriend or boyfriend who makes you feel like life is worth living because someone finally thinks you’re attractive. You can just go find someone to love and give love to, because you know that in Jesus you have the ultimate love that secures your life.
And you don’t need to wear a T-shirt and tie to set yourself apart and help people see how unique you are. Speaking from experience, you will definitely stick out but not in the ways you hoped.
Instead, look to Christ, trust in Christ, and abide in Christ. Then “to thine own self be true.” If you do the former, the latter will take care of itself.
Derek Rishmawy is the Reformed University Fellowship campus minister at the University of California, Irvine.
Read the other articles in our Following Christ in College series here:
Why College Students Need The Local Church
Learning From Failure While Pursuing Success
Enjoying College and the Pursuit of Pleasure