Who Are You? What are you Doing Here?
A fellow coach recently shared a parable with me while we were talking about how easily we drift from ourselves.
One moment, we feel clear and intentional. The next, we are reaching for our phones almost automatically, sliding into a few minutes of distraction that somehow become an hour. We move through routines, responsibilities, conversations, notifications, and noise, often without noticing how far we have wandered from what actually matters to us.
The parable stayed with me.
The Rabbi and the Roman Soldier
It is said that a rabbi took the wrong fork in the road one dark night while walking home.
Before long, he was startled by a voice shouting from the darkness:
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The rabbi realized he had accidentally wandered into a Roman outpost. For a moment, he froze.
Again, the soldier called out:
“Who are you? What are you doing here?”
The rabbi paused and then asked the soldier a surprising question.
“How much are you paid each day?”
Confused, the soldier replied:
“Two denarii a day. Why?”
The rabbi answered:
“I will double your wage if you come to my house every morning and ask me those same two questions.”
-End of parable
The older I get, the more I understand the wisdom underneath that response.
The rabbi did not lack intelligence or insight.
He lacked reminders.
He understood something deeply human:
clarity fades.
Not all at once, but gradually.
Under stress.
Under routine.
Under urgency.
Under the constant pull of distraction and expectation.
We slowly lose contact with ourselves while remaining fully functional on the surface.
And perhaps that is what makes those two questions so powerful.
Not because they are easy to answer, but because they interrupt our autopilot.
Who are you?
What are you doing here?
Not:
What do you do?
What have you achieved?
What are you producing?
What are other people expecting from you?
But something quieter.
More honest.
More disorienting.
Questions that ask us to return to ourselves.
I think good coaching often works this way too.
Not by handing people answers, but by helping create space for the questions that become harder to hear once life gets loud.
The work is not answering those questions once and moving on.
The work is returning to them again and again.
Because identity is not something we solve permanently.
It is something we remain in conversation with over time.
And sometimes, what we need most is not more advice.
Just someone, or something, willing to stop us long enough to ask:
Who are you?
And what are you doing here?
An Unframed Question
When was the last time you realized you had drifted away from something that mattered to you?
What helped you find your way back?
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Occasional reflections on coaching, leadership, growth, and the stories that shape us.
