Keeping one's identity small is hard

Why do you think so? It's usual to express things in terms of one's identity (for example, people often say "I don't believe in God", a property of the person, instead of asserting "There is no God", a statement about the world), but this widespread tradition doesn't necessarily indicate that it's difficult to do otherwise, if people didn't systematic try (in particular, in the form of a cultural tradition, so that conformity would push people to discard their identity).