In the past year, I’ve watched two houses being built. One in front of my house and another beside it. Because I live in a building with no visible number on the gate, for a year those uncompleted structures were landmarks for people coming to visit or workmen. “Drive to the centre of the road till you come to an uncompleted building”, I would say, any time I wanted to direct people to my home. Now the houses are complete and I use the red colour of the gate next door as my marker.

I wonder how many of us use external references to define our lives. When people speak of us, do they say, “Oh, don’t you know that girl? She’s John’s sister” or “Hey, that’s the guy I was speaking about. The one that works at Mobil.”

Do you find your relevance in something or someone or is there anything that’s distinctly “you”? Are you a reference point or do you derive your definition from someone else?