Paul Brian
The Bourne Identity is a 2002 film about a man who wakes up after being fished out of the ocean with no memory of who he is or why he was tossed into the sea.
He comes to find out that he’s a secret agent and that a lot of very bad people want him dead.
Most of us lead quite ordinary lives and don’t go on car chases down stone staircases in Paris or fall in love with rebellious badass women helping us survive takedown attempts by skilled assassins.
But there’s a twist:
At least some of us are secret agents with a hidden identity. Here’s how to discover the truth about your secret agent identity.
1) You’ve often felt like you’re playing a role
The first of the traits that hint at your hidden identity is that you’ve often felt like you’re playing a role.
You look in the mirror and you feel like somebody else is staring back at you.
This ordinary man or woman looking back doesn’t feel like you; you’re somebody much more than this you can feel it in your bones.
You have a yearning to discover your true self but it’s as if it’s just beyond your reach.
The ancient Greeks believed that before birth we drink the waters of the River Lethe and forget our pre-birth and past life experience as the condition of being born.
It feels like you’re more than just you, but you can’t quite put your finger on it.
Maybe you just don’t fit in at this current time and place in your life?
Are you just losing it?
2) You have surprising skills you can’t explain
Then you may also notice that you have surprising skills that seem to have come out of nowhere.
You sit down at a piano and have a natural touch for it…
You begin drawing and it’s like you were born with the ability…
You find yourself remembering key details of people, places, and subjects that most other people would forget.
It can start to feel like you actually are Jason Bourne as he realizes that he’s memorized the license plates in a parking lot without even trying to.
Where did these skills come from?
3) You have secret hobbies you hide from other people
Next up in signs you’re a secret agent in your current life is that you have secret hobbies you hide from other people.
This could be the hobby of smoking Cuban cigars while out on lonely, mysterious walks by the ocean…
Or it could be your hobby of playing pool with the old timers and betting big sums of money several times a week…
Maybe you have even less PG-rated hobbies that you prefer to keep secret from your significant other and the judgment of society.
You keep a low profile, maybe even wearing a homburg hat or a fedora while engaging in your secret hobbies.
You figure that what you love to do isn’t something everybody else needs to know about.
It just expresses some deep part of who you are that can’t seem to be expressed in your “regular” daily life.
4) You frequently say what people want to hear in order to blend in
The next of the key signs that you’re definitely a secret agent hiding in your own life is that you frequently say what people want to hear just to blend in.
You don’t want to break cover, so when the guys at work say they all love that one politician or hate that other one you chime in with agreement.
You want to make your partner happy, so when she says that this new TV show is amazing, you nod and agree even though you think it’s flaming garbage.
At your work and in your personal life, you find yourself reciting lines that you don’t believe and saying things that sound quite stupid.
You’re sitting in the Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) training session sounding like the world’s most sensitive humanitarian but you don’t believe a word of what you’re repeating and saying.
That sure sounds like spy behavior to me…
5) You dream of a different life where your true power would be unleashed
As you go about your day and go through the motions, you find yourself dreaming of a different life where your true power would be unleashed.
It would also be a life where you take a dip on a pristine sand beach and meet a breathtaking woman in a silver bikini at your exclusive resort.
It would be a life where the only thing higher than the insane thread count of your sheets would be your body count under those sheets as you extract highly classified information by any means necessary.
The secret hobbies you love and the surprising talents you find in yourself also have a place in this other world.
It’s a place where you’re recognized for being far from average, and where you can put your skills to real use at protecting national security.
Or something.
What does it all mean?
We all feel out of place in our lives from time to time and realize that we have way more potential and power than what we’re using.
Our inner “secret agent” is our self-actualized self, waiting to be unleashed.
First, we have to recognize the power and potential we have, however, and then it’s a matter of finding ways to manifest that in the world.
Here’s how to know which type of secret agent you are.
Which type of secret agent are you?
1) Sleeper agent
Sleeper agents enter a country or group to provide information and services but lay low until they are needed.
They have the advantage of being much harder to watch and track for counterintelligence agencies since they are sometimes completely ordinary people for years prior to any espionage activity.
As a sleeper agent, your current life and the places you feel out of place may not make sense now.
But a day will come when you’re called upon to change the way things are, maybe by leading a strike at your company or by solving a problem nobody else can solve in society.
You feel like you’re useless and in the wrong place, but the right time when your services will be needed is just around the corner!
2) Field agent
Next up we come to the field agent.
Field agents don’t sit at a desk or knit diversity quilts at the meet-and-greet spy therapy session.
These men and women are out in the field like James Bond, packing multiple passports and pretending to work for companies they don’t work for.
They’re photographing, recording, setting up deals, and engaging in all sorts of funny business in order to carry out their assigned missions.
As a field agent, you are in the thick of the action. You’re working to make changes in your life and bring your skills into the reality of your day-to-day life.
Whether this means making a big move, changing careers, or something else it depends on you.
3) Agent of influence
Agents of influence help spread the ideology and propaganda of a foreign power inside a country via its media, politics, business, and society.
They may be paid directly through a handler, managed indirectly to act in an influential way, or even be a “useful idiot” who helps advance the interests of an adversary without realizing they are.
As an agent of influence, you are very convincing in expressing and spreading your point of view and find that you’re able to change people’s minds on important subjects.
You are looking for an important role where what you say really matters and you can make a difference through your words.
4) Stay-behind agent
Stay-behind agents are left-over in a country when it’s taken over or occupied.
They then act as spies and try their best to undermine the new regime.
As a stay-behind agent, you’re the survivor of some serious trauma and disappointments.
But you’re picking up the pieces and finding out what you can about the healing process and about picking up intel on the bad people and situations that hurt your life so much so you can help others avoid the same fate.
5) Double agent
Double agents are those who are spying on their own side.
As Sun Tzu wrote in the Art of War:
“You must seek out enemy agents who have come to spy on you, bribe them and induce them to stay with you, so you can use them as reverse spies.”
As a double agent, you may find that you go through dynamic changes in your beliefs, lifestyle, and career.
You go through long phases and then double back on them, becoming close to the opposite, yet somehow still you.
In the process, you find out much more about what you really want from life, love, and other people.
