Who You Are

So my facebook got hacked a while ago. Well, not technically hacked, but I left it open while I was taking a shower, and my lovely roommate at the time took full advantage of it. He changed things like my gender, sexual orientation, location, age, etc...but he also changed my likes and dislikes. I just now realized that I had forgotten to take a few of them down (a bit awkward--I hope nobody was creeping on my profile and believed any of it) so when I remembered this, I went on and edited some of my information. I was editing my activities and interest when I realized that if someone who didn't know me at all started to read my profile, this is all that they would know about me. Just a few words telling them what kinds of things I liked to do.

It was a bit disappointing. I thought to myself,

"Can my entire personality be described by just a few words? Is this how other people see me? The things that I do?"

I mean, when you are describing someone to someone else, what kinds of things do you mention? Usually physical attributes, simple personality traits, and activities that they like to do. But, how many people in the world share these traits? How many 5'9" white males are there? How many people skateboard, or read, or write, or play sports? Sure, If you throw enough things into the mix, eventually you create more of an illusion of individuality, but there is still more than that to define a person. Of course, I can do some unique things too, but I really hope that I am not defined by the fact that I can make a noise like a cricket, or pop my shoulder blades out, or memorize really long things; those don't make me who I am either.

I started thinking about it more. Are you defined by the people that you surround yourself with? The way that you were raised as a child? Most certainly neither. They do affect me, but they do not define me. People may judge me by the people that I hang out with, but I am not defined by them. They can influence the way I act and the activities that I participate in and help or hinder my growth, but I am still a smaller part of a larger whole in a group; an individual. I am not everything now that I was as a child either; as I grow and mature more I will not be everything that I am now. Sure, one might say that we are always changing, but we still haven't determined how we define who we are.

Finally, I came to a conclusion.

You determine who you are by the choices you make.

Shoot, I will even throw in there "The choices that you WANT to make" too. Just choices, that is it--nothing else really matters. The combination of the activities that you do may make you unique, but they do not define who you truly are. There many be thousands of people in the world with nearly the exact same likes and dislikes as you, but that doesn't mean that they are the same as you, just as a doppelganger isn't you just because they look the same.

I am not defined by the way I look, or the way I dress, or the activities that I participate in. I am defined by the choices that I make in each and every situation, and the reasons that these choices are made. I make my choices based upon my beliefs, my intellect, my past experiences, and my feelings. There is no way that these can all be summed up in a few words. These define who I am.