BASELINE IDENTITY

Crafting a baseline identity is about giving yourself a stable inner posture

- Somi Das

Every few months, I fall into the same quiet panic: Who am I again? It is not the loud existential crisis of adolescence, where you cry into a pillow and dramatically vow to “find yourself.”

It is the adult version, silent and sneaky, disguised as overworking, overthinking, and occasionally scrolling through LinkedIn as if someone there will kindly hand you a replacement personality.

This wobbliness, this feeling of not having a solid baseline identity, is more common than we admit. Most of us grew up being told to follow your passion, be unique, be authentic, as though identity is a static object you are supposed to stumble upon like a lost earring under the bed. Instead, identity behaves more like a rhythm. Sometimes strong and confident, sometimes faint and hard to hear under all the noise.

The trick is not to find identity but to build a baseline version of it. A home frequency you can return to when life stretches you thin.

Start with your through-lines, not your achievements:

Most of us pin identity on things that shift, such as jobs, titles, cities, even relationships. But a baseline identity is not the scaffolding around your life. It is the quiet truths that stay even when the scaffolding falls.

Think of your through-lines