Jesse doesn’t know who she is. So, she decides to ask others to give her an identity.
‘Then I’ll know who I am and gain the respect of people.’
She walks into the forest and declares loudly, ‘I would like to become a tree, like all of you. Then I will know who I am! I am a tree!’
But the trees, after swaying in the wind, say she doesn’t really fit in, she’s too fleshy, lacks roots and with no bark to speak of.
‘We think you’re more than fine as you are,’ say the trees, which is absolutely not what Jesse wishes to hear.
She doesn’t think she’s fine at all.
So Jesse goes online, where the coolest, happiest and brightest people are, and says, ‘I would like to become an influencer, have people listen to me with interest. Then I will know who I am. I am an influencer!’
But the influencers say, ‘Girl, you lack connectivity, hey, you’re too hidden, the camera don’t love you. You’re not, like, out there like we are.’
Which is absolutely not what Jesse wishes to hear. ‘Out there’ is exactly where she wishes to be. Well, really anywhere but here.
Here is terrible.
In her continued search of an identity, she tries other doors.
‘I’ll be a hairdresser. Then I’ll be someone! It’s better than being no one. I am a hairdresser!’
But the hairdresser says her fingers are too fat and the weight lifter says her neck is too thin and the pub boss says ‘Come back when you’ve got more experience.’
‘Experience of what?’
‘Pub work.’
‘But how?!’…
Jesse is at her wit’s end. How is she to find an identity if nobody else will give her one?
It’s just not fair.
On her walk home, deep in disappointment and high dudgeon, she looks up at the sparkling night sky, and – although it’s a long shot – asks if she could possibly become a star.
‘Then I’ll know who I am! Then people will admire me! I am a star!’
The stars discuss this among themselves because they do try to help. And then one of the younger orbs gives the news:
‘You cannot be a star.’
‘Oh no!’
‘You cannot be a star because you are Jesse – and brighter than any of us. We’d love to be like you.’
‘But I don’t want to be me. I want to be like you and your friends. Then I’d know who I am and have respect. People would look up to me – literally!’
‘No one can give you yourself, Jesse.’
‘Oh?’
‘It’s in no one’s power to do that – neither the forest, the internet, the hairdresser or the stars. Simply value yourself and be perfectly, wonderingly, curiously, laughingly, deeply and gratefully you. Then, Jesse, you will know who you are.’
And this is what Jesse decided to do in 2025.
