Originally published on Huffington Post.

In mid 2009, I left my position as CEO of a company that I had founded. I didn’t know it at the time, but this was the beginning of an almost four-year process that I can only describe as losing my identity.

In this time frame I would go through heartbreak and homelessness and question every aspect of my life. I moved from Honolulu to San Francisco to New York City. The new company I started went through eight pivots, four co-founders, and near bankruptcy. I spent 11 months living in my car and incurred massive debt just to keep things going. After a challenging breakup, I didn’t go on a single date for 18 months. I decided to stop eating meat and lost 15 pounds of muscle mass. I sold almost everything I owned down to my car, ultimately living on the grace of good friends. I went through immense psychological stress and periods of time where I could see no light at the end of the tunnel.

All the things that had been important to me — a nice apartment, fashionable clothes, a fancy startup, my social life, financial stability, my diet and fitness, even my sexuality — dissolved. Spending nights alone in my car, staring at rain drops sliding down the window, there was nothing to distract me from me.

As I began to let go of all these things, I came to a very challenging psychological place: I had no idea who I was. With every core identity in question, I had a very hard time even socializing with other people. If I had no identity, on what basis could I connect with others?

Identity is that collection of attributes that defines how we see ourselves. It is the answer to the question: Who am I? Anyone who has ever seriously asked themselves that question may have found that the answer is not as obvious as one might think it should be.

I am Lorenz. But who is that? The relationship that I have with the people I know, the things I do, and the stuff I own paints a very inviting image of who I am. But what happens when I take those things away? Who am I then?

When the attributes of our identity are externalized, those attributes control us. Our sense of self worth becomes dependent on external considerations. We must have enough money, means, and status in order to consider ourselves happy. In pursuit of maintaining this false sense of happiness, we cling all the more strongly to external identifiers because so much self worth emanates from them. It can take losing these things, losing our identity, to see our true nature outside of them.

Each identity is a limited interpretation of who we are. The sum of our external identities is far less than the whole of our being. True freedom arises when we are not dependent on something outside ourselves for the way we feel about ourselves. The way we feel about ourselves starts with the relationship that we have with ourselves.

We choose the people we hang out with, the things we do, and the stuff we buy. That choice comes from somewhere. The source of that choice is much closer to our identity than the product. To understand our choices we must examine why we do the things that we do.

In experiencing my loss of identity, I could see that many of my actions were motivated by a desire for external recognition. I was either trying to impress others or worried about how they would judge me. However, any situation where my self expression is contingent upon the validation of others is bound to limit me from being myself. And if I’m not being myself, how can I possibly be happy?

True identity is being true to oneself. For me this is cultivating genuine self respect and a willingness to be vulnerable. This makes for a more flexible identity that is based on how I feel about my actions rather than the outcome of my actions. If I feel good then I know my behavior is aligned with values that bring me real happiness.

Since my car-living days, I’ve raised money for my company, moved into a beautiful apartment, and started dating an amazing woman. Am I attached to these things? Absolutely. But I try not to depend on them for how I feel about myself. Most importantly, I’m learning to see myself outside of my circumstances. This hasn’t happened overnight. It’s a process of making small choices that reinforce personal dignity day by day. When my self worth is decoupled from external considerations, I allow for genuine self expression to occur. In this sense, losing identity is really about finding ones true self.

In struggling to find my identity I realized that I create my own identity. This is the most valuable lesson that I have learned. When I let go of the need to define myself, I can choose any definition I want. By accepting that I am not limited by any notion of identity, I liberate myself to just be me. Right here, right now, I am choosing my identity by how I am choosing to spend my time. In this very moment I am creating myself and this is my identity.

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?” – Dr. Seuss

I regularly feel challenged by time. I want more time to do everything I want to do, learn the things I want to learn, be with my friends and family, and just relax once in a while. Yet time holds me prisoner in its unstoppable progression.

Ultimately, what is most stressful about life is our relationship with time.  Modern life is a multitasked existence. In our pursuit of productivity, we have perfected the art of constant partial attention such that our enjoyment of the things we do is equally fragmented. Spending time with friends, we think about work. Working, we wish we had more time to spend with friends. Though we may speak on the phone, read an email, and eat at the same time, we have not tripled our efficiency as much as diminished the quality of each experience.

If time holds us captive, it simultaneously offers the key to our liberation. Our shackles belong to the past and the future. In the present moment there is no past or future that is not contingent upon our attention to exist. Learning to manage our attention is the best way to manage our relationship with time.

Quality of life is proportional to the quality of our attention. Presence is focused attention on the current moment. It’s a choice and a practice. We choose to be present with our work, our friends, and our families. Then we practice and practice and practice.

In my own experience, this practice has been training myself to give attention to one thing at a time and being fully attentive when I’m having a conversation. I try to catch myself and breathe deeply whenever I feel my mind wander. In the pursuit of building a better relationship with my mind, I’ve found meditation, exercise, and diet to be the three pillars of progress. The key ingredient, though, is a continuing commitment to myself to be present.

Presence doesn’t make our schedule any less hectic. It does, however, change our relationship with time. Each moment becomes more satisfying, less consumed with worrying about what’s next. Time begins to revolve around our attention, instead of our attention revolving around time. That shift is the difference between freedom and bondage. It is the freedom to live life on our own terms, taking the time to do what’s important to us. It is the freedom to experience each moment fully, our attention undiminished by thoughts of elsewhere.

There is no magic analgesic that will grant us presence and mental acuity. Building a relationship with the mind takes work. Being present is a commitment to our own humanity. We exist to participate in life, not stress it’s future nor lament it’s past. Time only gives us one chance to experience the beauty in each moment. Now.

“There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect.” – Ronald Reagan, 40th President of the United States

This week I sat down to write about the human spirit. I wanted to understand how is it that something common to every human being is so difficult to grasp. No doubt this is the domain of religion, but my inquiry is more practical in nature – what does it mean to be human? Though my quest did not yield the articulate definition I was hoping for, it left me with a powerful thought: the human spirit offers us the capacity to persevere in pursuit of truth.

Our most rewarding endeavor is to build confidence in our beliefs and cultivate the wherewithal to actualize them. We are born to contribute by creating. From that intangible space between mind and heart emerges the palette of creativity. Our thoughts are manifest through action, each a stroke of the soul’s paintbrush. Life is the canvas upon which our spirit renders it’s masterpiece.

Each of us struggles with limitation in a very personal way. Without limitation we would have no individuation. Humanity would be a canvas of even monochromatic brushstrokes. Our perceived limitations offer the kaleidoscope of human experience. The apex of our potential is where we find the full expression of our being.

In striving to realize our full potential we encounter the source of our fulfillment and frustration. That which is most true to us, the deepest desire in our heart, is rarely a straight and easy path. In my own life, I’ve endured lots of failure and even spent a year living in my car. I’ve been in situations where I simply did not see a light at the end of the tunnel. Worse than failure, is ambiguity. Not knowing how to move forward, being stuck in limbo. It’s painful and can make the strongest person want to quit.

The alternative, however, is not being true to oneself. It is to diminish the human experience, settling for an easier life at the expense of our heart’s joy. We let ourselves down and sell others short the benefit of our full grace. Each of us is an example of what is possible and, by virtue of that, inspires greatness in others. Our greatest contribution to those around us is our own excellence.

When there’s a truth that we are aching for, when a person yearns to fathom the color of their own soul, the human spirit gives us the capacity to see it through. How ever many times we might fall, the human spirit gives us the strength to get back up and try again. Inevitably, persistence begets progress. One day, despite all odds, we accomplish what we set out to create.

We overcome limitation when we change our perspective. We tend to think of ourselves as existing in one time and place, but we don’t. The present moment is only the tip of the paintbrush. It takes time to create a work of art. Our journey begins with the first stroke and our spirit, that intangible essence which makes us human, sees us through to the last.