Surgically Tweaking Our Personal Identities

For most of us, the older that we get, the more aware we become of who we are as individuals, made up of our own thoughts, emotions and behaviors. We come to learn what we enjoy, what makes us tick and ultimately what we want in life. All human beings quickly discover as children and teens their likes and dislikes, though learning our true identities takes much longer. It is easier to discover our dislike for spinach than to make sense of our tumultuous pasts. It can take decades to identify the core of our beings, including our personalities, weird beliefs and quirky behaviors. Up to that point, we are our own worst enemies, seeking people and things that do not benefit us, while ignoring worthwhile activities, such as poetry, blogging or learning a new language. Self-awareness ultimately leads to personal growth and happiness. I think of these things as I embark on my my 36th year. I may not be the wisest person, but I am determined to become the most productive, happiest version of myself.

My own journey of self-discovery and mindfulness was delayed and very late in coming. During my twenties and early thirties, I wandered aimlessly through life, not motivated to find myself or plan for the future. I have long suffered low self-esteem, and many of my life circumstances, including my mental disorders and family background, limited my personal growth. However, I should have been much more vigorous in helping myself, striking my own path in the best way possible, crawling out of the debilitating muck that I was mired in.

During my years of emotional and intellectual vagrancy, I encountered many people doing the same thing. Some of them formerly had structure and stability, before a loss or major disappointment sent their lives spiraling into chaos; they may have lost a child or gone through a messy divorce. Others lived a chaotic youth before successfully building their own lives; some of these young men and women had not been taught discipline as kids, or were rebelling too hard against an overly strict upbringing. Still others were lost souls who are lost to this day, sociopaths and drifters rejecting any form of structure or personal growth, opting instead for never-ending social conflict and frequent incarceration. This has taught me much about the paths each of us tread in the search for sustainable happiness.

  

In order to grow and change, it is absolutely critical that we become aware of our personalities, the core of who we really are. Our personalities rarely change much throughout our lives. As mentioned in my blog post about personality types, people can and do have catastrophic life experiences that radically change their personalities, but this is quite rare. Hopefully, we learn to channel them toward positive outlets, creating results that work well for us. Aiding these necessary transformations are the acquiring of new beliefs and values, as necessary. For example, the political conservatism of my childhood didn't fit my inherent personality traits of extroversion, sensitivity and compassion.

To avoid moving along the road of life like a robot, it is crucial that we think deeply about what we believe or value, and why. From our childhood, we have beliefs and values that are instilled in us by our parents, the education system and society in general; there are readily apparent social norms that children everywhere pick up on. Many things taught or handed down to us are useful in our quest for survival and pleasure, but we are also bombarded with multiple untruths that make life miserable for many of us. It could be religious beliefs that are forced on us, or various forms of bigotry that are handed down in our families. As teens and young adults, though, we have hopefully used our skeptical, rebellious tendencies to gain the skill of discernment, to separate truth from fiction, and to develop our own worldview that combines the best of our upbringing with the truths that life experience has shown us. A lifetime of trying new things will accelerate this process. Who said experimentation is always bad? 

For many of us, our belief systems change radically throughout our lives. I, for example, rejected my dogmatic Roman Catholic upbringing when I was in my early-to-mid twenties. As in my case, the more untruths we have been taught as children, the more radical the change has to be. Conformity is the easiest way to go in the short-term, but it causes great harm over time. This can be seen in the 46% of American voters who cast their ballots for Donald Trump in 2016, or in the great many people who believe that the Bible is the literal word of God, just because it's what they've always believed. If we learn to be skeptical, to question everything, we will become our own best allies, even if it means not being part of the "in crowd."

Nothing impacts our ability for personal growth more than how we behave toward other people. If we honestly recall our personal pasts, we will identify ways that we have always behaved, both generally and in certain situations. Maybe we are prone to lose our temper or, like me, to shy away from any type of interpersonal conflict. These patterns of behavior that have not served us well are our personal weaknesses. Such character flaws need to be addressed and overcome. We also look back on our strengths, the things that we like and admire about ourselves. These are things that we should capitalize on.

Thoughts and emotions control behavior, so we need to eliminate negative thoughts and feelings; anger and resentment never produce desirable results. We must focus on positive thoughts and emotions that lead to happiness. Once these are geared toward happiness and success, we can use our Impartial Spectator (our detached, analytical mind referenced in Dr. Schwartz's book) to select the actions that will benefit us, and then implement them. We need to ask ourselves if we need to merely tweak a few things, or to bring about a complete personal metamorphosis.

Once we know the direction we wish to go, we can motivate ourselves by formulating game plans for success. Like anything in life, we must develop detailed plans for remaking ourselves into the happy, productive adults we were meant to be. Creating a timetable for these plans will likely affect positive results. We can hard-wire these things into our brains by writing them down in a spiral notebook or on a word processor. This is largely what I am doing in my life right now, typing away late into the night. I am examining things that I have learned in my 35th year, and thinking about the personal changes I want to make in the next year. I hope to be the Phoenix that rises from the ashes, but that remains to be seen, as my blogging and social goals will take a lot of work.

In conclusion, we may have made mistakes and done bad things in our lives, making day-to-day life miserable for ourselves and the people around us, but it is never too late to change and to start a positive new phase of our lives, in which we experience tremendous personal growth. We can't control fate or prevent the consequences of our past misdeeds (such as fleeing to North Philadelphia), but we can make changes that will guarantee better results in the future, and a positive attitude that will make the storms of life much more bearable. Even common people like me can change their destinies at any point in their lives; it is never too late! Start being happy today!