What’s your role?

There are any number of sayings which convey some version of the notion that we all have our specific role to play. Sometimes, it is expressed as a warning: “Don’t get too big for your britches.” Sometimes, it is more of an affirmation of community: “It takes a village.”

In Denmark, where I grew up, we have a whole value system built up around insisting that we are all the same (“Janteloven” or the Law of Jante), so I am culturally pre-disposed to distrust any idea that we might not be. I also, as it happens, have always felt stifled by this insistence on “sameness” which is one of the main reasons that I emigrated in the first place.

The thing is, we are manifestly not all the same. We manifestly have different abilities and propensities and desires and skills. This is not a problem. This should be a source of joyousness and hope.

But we are all the same in value and worth.

And that is the part that often gets muddled. Buried in the notion that someone could get too big for their britches is a value-judgement about the “appropriate station” for that particular person. And the cultural belief about sameness in Denmark is most definitely couched in moral terms: we should be the same, we should believe about ourselves that we are the same, we should limit ourselves so that we appear to be the same.

I have never felt comfortable with any of that. I feel instinctively drawn to a celebration of differences that doesn’t posit a hierarchy of who is “better” or “more.” It doesn’t make sense to me that intellectual labor is paid higher than manual or caring labor, or even that there is a clear line between the three. I want to live in a world where we marvel at and celebrate each other’s skills and abilities. I already know that everyone I encounter is teaching me something, all the time, every day.

We all have a role to play, yes. And this role is evolving, shape-changing, valuable, and unique. It is ours to play and share with the world.

Originally published at https://www.yogatheworld.org on January 5, 2023.