A couple of years ago, I went on a date where the man asked me, Who are you? I was twenty-three at the time, and he was a decade older. I didn’t know exactly what he was asking, so I said, “I’m Yuka Kawata, twenty-three years old, college graduate, and future doctor.”
He smiled and said, Okay, but who is the real Yuka—the one that’s not on paper?
In that moment, I had no idea what to say. I didn’t know what the answer was. I had no idea who I was, and it bothered me for months. The thought lingered in my head 24/7, and every time I asked myself the same question in the mirror, I came up with nothing new.
I realized that at twenty-three, I had no idea who I was. I only thought about myself in the way society told me I should. That hurt me. I hated the idea that I had taken so much pride in thinking I knew who I was and where I was going. It felt like my whole identity had disappeared in a matter of seconds.
That moment started a very long journey of trying to figure out who the hell I was—and why it mattered.
I’m twenty-five and a half now, and there are still parts of myself I discover every day. But thank God the girl at twenty-three decided to flip her whole world upside down.
For most of my life, I thought I wanted a fast-paced life and big money because that’s what I was told I should want. I only ever wanted to be a doctor because I thought it would make me someone…someone great, someone who changed people’s lives. But I realized that wasn’t my dream. It was a dream forced upon me when I was a kid.
At twenty-three, I was living for people I thought were important…until one day, I woke up. I realized I care about knowing myself. I know now that I want a slow-paced life, one where I can climb mountains when I please and see parts of the world that can only be reached by foot.
A lot of figuring out who I am has been figuring out what I want…my dreams, my goals, my future. I needed a why. I needed to understand why I was doing it all, and why living was worth anything at all.
Eventually, I realized my “why” was me. I care about me.
So, if you were to ask me who I am today, I would tell you: I’m happily figuring it out, day by day. That’s my beauty in living.