Like the quarter, you are always acting in a role. The roles you play aren’t your fixed and unchanging identity. Rather, you are acting a particular way based on the rules of the situation you are in. Like the chess pieces, your role is relative to what surrounds you. In some situations, you may play the role of a parent. In other situations, you may be a student, or a firefighter, or a friend, or, if you’re playing with my six-year-old, you may be a trampoline to jump on. A friend of mine, Blaine, works as a manager of an industrial hose warehouse. Blaine told his friend Brad that he was just a “hoser,” which disturbed Brad, who thought it belittled Blaine. Perhaps it would be better for Blaine to identify himself as a manager? Although it’s common for us to overattach ourselves and to identify with the jobs we have, in reality, we are just acting in roles, whether that be a writer, a manager, a police officer, a lawyer, or a teacher. These roles quickly change as we change our context.

Never forget that you can make your role anything you want it to be. Anything you hate to do, someone else loves. So find that person and let her do it.

If you want to change but you stay in the victim box, you will never change. I have to get out of the whole victim role and make it work

The fact that you start off your career with a particular role played well, does not mean that is the role that you will continue with.

changed everything about how I chose roles moving forward."

"Sometimes we consciously or unwittingly adopt new roles as circumstances change and are hurt by the result. For instance, a couple may say, "It was so wonderful before we got married. Once we were married, something went wrong?" When the couple was together before, they were just being. The moment they got married they took on the roles that had been taught to them, trying to "be a husband" and "be a wife.

But before you can determine what that role will be, you must ask yourself

You can often change your circumstances by changing your attitude

Besides language, the child has to accept many other forms of
code. For the necessities of living together require agreement as to
codes of law and ethics, of etiquette and art, of weights, measures,
and numbers, and, above all, of role. We have difficulty in
communicating with each other unless we can identify ourselves in
terms of roles–father, teacher, worker, artist, “regular guy,”
gentleman, sportsman, and so forth. To the extent that we identify
ourselves with these stereotypes and the rules of behavior
associated with them, we ourselves feel that we are someone
because our fellows have less difficulty in accepting us-that is, in
identifying us and feeling that we are “under control.” A meeting of
two strangers at a party is always somewhat embarrassing when the
host has not identi.ed their roles in introducing them, for neither
knows what rules of conversation and action should be observed.

The roles that we construct are constructed because we feel that they will help us to survive and also, of course, because they fulfill something in our personalities; and one does not, therefore, cease playing a role simply because one has begun to understand it. All roles are dangerous. The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself as one appears to be and oneself as one actually is.

Act Well the Part That Is Given to You We are like actors in a play. The divine will has assigned us our roles in life without consulting us. Some of us will act in a short drama, others in a long one. We might be assigned the part of a poor person, a cripple, a distinguished celebrity or public leader, or an ordinary private citizen. Although we can’t control which roles are assigned to us, it must be our business to act our given role as best as we possibly can and to refrain from complaining about it. Wherever you find yourself and in whatever circumstances, give an impeccable performance. If you are supposed to be a reader, read; if you are supposed to be a writer, write.

The most practical way to change who you are is to change what you do.

Understand this: The world wants to assign you a role in life. And once you accept that role you are doomed.

Teach others or be a role model to galvanize your new identity. A social role is powerful.