Wherever You Go There You Are

On the paradoxical consistency and flux of self

The saying “wherever you go there you are” is one of those things that is both true and untrue. And two things can be true at the same time.

The idea is that we cannot fully escape ourselves by changing our external circumstances. Inner patterns persist. Our emotions, fears, hopes and well worn cognitive paths die hard.

When moving to a different country, a new job, a new relationship, or trying out a new identity, our internal world is still there. External change alone rarely transforms the root of our struggles or insecurities. We bring our habits of mind with us, even if the setting changes.

But it’s also incomplete, and incorrect if taken fatalistically. It overlooks the power we have to change our self-concept, intentionally transform with our agency and habits, and the profound impact that existing in new contexts, with different communities can have. How life events and experiences change us profoundly. While our patterns follow us, they are not immutable. New environments, healing relationships, deliberate practices, or profound experiences can shift who we are.

So while “you are there” wherever you go, you are not static. A person is not a thing but a process. There is always the potential for reinvention and change, not by escape, but by encounter. We have both the constancy of self and the capacity to evolve.