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How to find yourself
Tuesday, 11 July 2006
Along with the problem of trying to figure out how the world works, we also all have a similar problem of discovering exactly who it is we are. People are always surprising themselves with behavior they didn’t expect and thoughts they feel aren’t entirely in their control.
It seems we’re all born with certain parts of our personality already determined for us. And in order to function effectively in the world, we have to identify and work within the bounds of our internal traits. They’re like a road system which we have to drive along in order to cope. Trying to go outside the parameters of our personality is likely to make us miserable or worse.
A good example of this from my own life occurred when I was just entering adulthood. This is a time of big change in everyone’s lives, and when many people struggle to find their identity.
At the time, two of my best friends were in the process of becoming aggressive tough-guys. I went to a school where there were quite a few such people, and if you didn’t act macho, lots of them would treat you with suspicion and ridicule.
My basic personality isn’t really that swaggering and aggressive. I’m not saying I’m effeminate or a wimp or anything. I’m just a normal middle-class guy. It's just I don’t really like driving aggressively, getting into fights and acting tough like many of the other boys at my school.
But I found myself in an environment where such traits were considered important. Girls there liked rugged guys who fit the working-class hero mold. And if you let the guys see you were able to be victimized because maybe you weren’t that tough or street-smart, they didn’t need a second invitation.
Because of this, I started to think there was something wrong with me and make real efforts to change my personality. I forced myself to be more aggressive. I talked the talk and walked the walk, so to speak. This went on for a number of years, and I grew increasingly miserable.
I just wasn’t interested in the types of things they were. I knew how to fake being hard and street-smart, but really it just wasn’t me.
Eventually, I left town and went backpacking around Europe and the Middle East for a few months. Afterwards, I settled down in England for a couple of years. During this time, I met and made friends with quite a few people who were much more like me. They were thoughtful and mature rather than angry and macho.
Gradually, I began to realize that there wasn’t anything wrong with me. I wasn’t a “wimp” or anything. I was actually fairly normal. It was just the group I’d been spending time with previously had been different to me. My environment hadn’t fit with my basic personality.
This is just an example, but I think a lot of people are stuck in a similar situation. Not necessarily the hanging out with tough-guys when you’re not really a tough-guy circumstance – but rather being shaped by their environment in ways that probably don’t suit their basic personality.
Every group on Earth has some idea about what’s normal and what's not. In the USA, they think baseball is all important, while in India it’s cricket. Iranians have an obsession with the Muslim religion, while Spanish people are often atheists. In parts of LA, being a gangster is seen as serious business, while in Silicon Valley it’s all about geekiness.
Often, the group we find ourselves having to integrate with is chosen for us. It depends on who our parents are, where we grow up, what school we go to, and which friends we happen to make first. Because of this, many people end up spending a lot of time with those who may have fundamentally different personalities from them. They might be in a town where football is seen as all important, for example, while no matter how hard they try they just can’t get interested in it.
This jumble inside us of the personality we’re born with, the influence of our upbringing, and the pressures of our current environment can become confusing and overwhelming. We can sometimes feel ourselves getting lost and being pulled in all sorts of different directions.
Because of this, I think everyone should spend a few years on really finding themselves. Your basic personality is usually the most important of these pressures to satisfy. Discover what it is and how to meet its needs, rather than trying to squeeze a square peg into a round hole.
The only real way to do this is to separate yourself from your home environment and experiment spend time mixing with different groups. Travel and see the world. And most importantly, try living somewhere far away from where you grew up. That will give you a much better opportunity to socialize with different types of people, because you won’t be tempted to fall back into your old routine.
The best time to do this is when you’re reasonably young, but any time in life can be good. This is especially helpful if you’re feeling disconnected from your current environment or as if you don’t fit.
Go out and find yourself. Until you discover who you really are – not what your surroundings are demanding you become – it will be very difficult to get any kind of deep contentment.
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