Being & Doing

I have been having some dialog with a friend about being and doing:

Dana:
Regarding our conversation yesterday on doing and being, I have been thinking about this observation for some time now:

The difference between
    who you are and
  who you want to be
is what you do.

Thoughts?

Gracelyn:
I am curious to hear what your interpretation of what this means.

My initial thought is that I already "do" too much. When I relate or move in a way that isn't who I want to be, I think I need to work harder to change the behavior or the parts I don't like. I so quickly label the behavior as negative and try to shut it down instead of being curious about it and taking it to God... the only One who ultimately has the power to truly change me.

Maybe that is what it is saying...sometimes for a behavior to become routine, it is necessary to be very purposeful about it, and eventually it becomes more of a reflex.

I'm interested in hearing your thoughts.

Dana:
Am I struck by the mixture of the human and divine realities.  Humanly, I do observe a deep connection between what we do and what we become...both good and bad.  Historically, it seems we move in and out of activity vs non-activity for a variety of reasons -- sometimes we talk too much and don't do enough, while at other times we do too much without really thinking about what we're doing or why we're doing it.

From a divine point-of-view, who I want to be as achieved by my own effort seems to always fall so far short.  So, we discover that it is really God who largely helps us become what we cannot seem to be on our own.

But, it seems that choosing a one-or-the-other approach in these kinds of things misses something significant.  The best way I've found to bridge the gap is to describe a kind of cooperation we must embrace with the work God is doing.  We do seem to need to participate somehow...rather than just sit there and assume we can't do anything anyway because God has to do 'it' (anyway).  I kind of like that word, cooperation, because it is something in the end that I must choose to join, to submit to.  And, in this way, I do believe that being active (cooperating) in the process is what moves us toward who we really want to be, something that is often a process, of discovery.

What do you think?