The separation of your identity from your role or your role from your identity … any way that you slice it, you are not what you do, and what you do is not who you are. Thematically, this is not dissimilar to the separation of Church and State, and if we look at that idea for a moment, maybe it will help cast some light and insight into the hodgepodge that is our lives.

Church is about being. It is about a state of mind, or if you prefer, a state of heart or soul. Church is about belief and faith. Church is about us. Church is for us. Church is about the mysteries of our existence. Church is about your spiritual state of being, and as such, Church (or something like it) is important for the you that is you.

State is about doing. Getting stuff done, our actions, our work, and our labours are all the doings of our lives. The goal of State is to separate what we as a nation believe (our being) from what we as a nation do (our activities). Why do we make this distinction? The answer, after many millennia of existence, is clear: we have to set aside our beliefs to be able to act as a rational people. Those who cannot set aside their beliefs act irrationally, and if you look around the world today, you can see many examples of where belief (church, religion, and ideology) confounds the State, and causes it and its peoples to act irrationally. Setting aside your beliefs when necessary may be difficult to accomplish. It may even be against your religion, but it must be accomplished to become a rational nation.

You are in the same boat at an individual level. If you fail to separate your human being from your human doing, you will mostly be acting irrationally. Of course, you can survive and even prosper without such a separation in your life, but you will not be as happy and fulfilled as you can be with either the state of your doing or the state of your being. True warriors know that they are not what they do, because sometimes they are asked to engage in battle, or to prosecute the will of the people, and the true warrior is certainly not a killing machine nor an instrument made to inflict pain and suffering on anyone. The true warrior has the skill, and practised talent required in the course of his or her employment. The true warrior is a noble soul, whose life is dedicated to the service of others and whose inward spiritual journey nourishes his or her soul. The practice of the true warrior’s being is not what he or she does; it is what he or she believes. The true warrior is nothing more and nothing less than the perfect creation of God. You—your instincts, your emotions, and (most often) your thinking—are what will cause you trouble, dissatisfaction, turmoil, and psychic pain. By failing to separate your self (your identity) from your role (your job, work, doings), you will be unable to act rationally. To act rationally you must separate your identity from your role. “I am not what I do. I am a perfect child of God. Only I can attack me. I am the one who is my self. No one can get at my self without my thinking, reacting, or emoting … and then I am the one doing it—not them.”

The true warrior embraces all comments, discussions, and critiques about his doings (performance), because it all helps the true warrior improve his or her doings. The seemingly negative assessments have nothing to do with who he or she is. It is just information! You are true warriors, and by keeping what you do separate from who you are, you will be a rational human being who contributes mightily to the cause. So it has been written.