If you don't figure out your own identity, "society will happily tell you," says Marianne Smith Geula, a Chicago Baha'i. What society told her in the 1970s was that she was a young, black woman. Or a young, biracial woman, if the person doing the telling was more perceptive.

Marianne Smith GeulaThe black separatist movement in which she was raised told her she was a young, black woman whose responsibility was to promote black power.

"None of those options worked for me," Ms. Geula told an audience recently at Transitions Bookplace in Chicago. Neither did identifying herself as a student, plus or minus gender and race.

Ms. Geula even wondered in her youth if race and gender make you who you are. If so, it was pretty limiting, she thought.

It wasn't until she began studying the Baha'i Faith in the late ‘70s and became a member in 1981 that she found her identity.

"I found that I am a spiritual being," Ms. Geula said. "And I discovered that the point of life is to grow spiritually, develop as an individual and help society develop."

Forget focusing on race, gender and other such labels. "That's what I call ‘purposeful fiction,'" says Ms. Geula, who is a lawyer. "It cheats you of who you really are and is just self-referential. But seeing yourself as a spiritual being allows you to tap into a larger world and source of strength, and to relate to others.

Ms. Geula says it's important that we take steps on our spiritual journey so when we enter the next world, "our souls can be eternal influences for those here.

"Baha'u'llah said, ‘The soul that hath remained faithful to the Cause of God, and stood unwaveringly firm in His Path shall, after his ascension, be possessed of such power that all the worlds which the Almighty hath created can benefit through him. Such a soul provideth, at the bidding of the Ideal King and Divine Educator, the pure leaven that leaveneth the world of being, and furnisheth the power through which the arts and wonders of the world are made manifest.'"