改变角色 让自己重生Changing roles and allowing yourself to envole

Change is seldom easy or comfortable, but when we don’t let go and allow life to flow, we miss out on opportunities to grow, learn, and have new adventures. 改变不是那般简单而令人舒适的。然而，如果我们不放手，学会让生活顺其自然，我们终将失去成长，学习及新鲜的冒险机遇。

I have worked for many years as a shelter and spay neuter veterinary technician. Earlier this year, I had the misfortune of losing the job at the shelter where I had worked for many years.
我从事兽医这行多年，负责为动物结扎。今年早些时候，我却不幸失去了在动物收容所从事多年的工作。

I found myself adrift. I had spent all these years caring for animals that had no one else to care for them. If I no longer had that job, I asked myself, who was I?
我发现自己顿时失去了目标。 这些年来我一直在关心无人问津的动物们。如果我不干这一行了，我问自己，我将会是谁？

Who are you? It’s the most elemental question in the world, but one that is not always easy to answer. Like most folks, I tend to answer this question by naming roles that I fulfill. Writer, boyfriend, son, veterinary technician, yogi, and entrepreneur—these are the things that first come to mind.
你是谁？这是世界上最基本的，但又总是难回答的问题。像大多数人一样，我试图凭借清数自己扮演的角色来回答这个问题。首先映入我脑海的字眼是，作家，男友，儿子，兽医，瑜伽信徒还有企业家。

It makes sense, because these are the roles that others see us fulfilling every day. In the world we operate in, we need to market ourselves as this or that role so that others know how to relate to us. But these are actually things that we do rather than what we are.
这点似乎合情合理，因为我们每天都在履行这些角色，别人都看在眼里。在我们经营的世界里，我们需要以这种或那种角色将自己推销出去，以便别人知晓如何与我们产生联系。这些确实是我们在做的事情，然而这些却无法诠释我们究竟是谁。

Most religions and spiritual belief systems teach that we are not our bodies, though we inhabit them and identify with them through the course of a lifetime. Nor are we our minds, though we use our minds and intelligence to guide us in our daily interactions.
大多数宗教和精神理念体系教诲我们不属于肉体，尽管我们以肉体形式存在，且终其一生都与肉体剪不断理还乱。我们也不属于思想，尽管我们使用思想和智慧指导日常交往。

When we identify with these things we cannot accept their loss through physical illness, injury, or death.
当我们认为人等同于肉体和思想，就会无法接受由身体疾病，伤痛或死亡带来的损失。

Whether you believe that some part of us survives our physical death or not, it’s easy to see that when we identify with the roles that we fulfill, it becomes very difficult to accept it when those roles must change.
不论你是否相信人的某个部分可以永恒，如果我们将自己等同于我们扮演的角色的话，一旦这些角色必须改变，接受改变是非常困难的，这点显而易见。

When we lose our job or must change careers, when we go through a divorce or when someone who helps define a role goes away or dies, who are we then?
当我们失业，需要换工作，当我们历经离婚，亦或帮我们定义角色的某人离开或死亡，到那时我们又是谁呢？

There’s no single answer to this question. For some, there may be a realization that you exist outside of the body and self that you think of as “you” and that you will continue to “be” no matter what roles you shed or even when you shed your physical body.
这个问题答案不是唯一的。对一些人来讲，或许存在某种意识，就是你存在于肉体和自身之外，你认为的自己，不论你自己角色如何转换，甚至你卸下肉体的躯壳，你终将继续是你。

For others, it may be more a matter of considering the purpose of the roles you fulfill. Their purpose may seem more like a lesson on the road to fulfilling your life’s purpose.
对于其他人来讲，这或许属于认清自己扮演角色目的事情了。各种角色的目的更像人生路上的一堂课程，以此来实现人生的意义。

For example, you may believe that each role allows you to learn more about yourself and others, or that each role is a way for you to manifest and offer love to others during your lifetime.
例如，你或许相信每种角色使你更加地了解自己和他人，亦或，每种角色在你生命中让你向他人证明并奉献了自己的爱。

In this case, when one of the roles you fulfill comes to an end—whether through separation