Who I Am and Why I Do What I Do

Have you ever looked at yourself and wondered who am I, and why do I do the things that I do? Well, I have always wondered this and it always seems to puzzle me. Do we do things because others are doing it, or because we ourselves want to do it, or is it that we want others to have a certain perception of who we want them to believe we are. So, which is it:

• Who are we really?
• What is the self?
• Will we ever find ourselves, and how will we know that we have?
• Are we biologically hardwired to act the way we do?
• Do we do things based on our experiences and interactions with others, or based on our emotions?

I chose this topic for a reason, which is to help me understand why we do what we do, and to try to better understand my ‘self’. The aim of this research is to hopefully find answers and or solutions to these questions, which have been on my mind for a while now.

This paper has been divided into four sections, based on the bulleted points above inclusive of my conclusion and appendices in which I have inserted a sample questionnaire. The methods used to perform this research are through observation, other findings on the Internet and questionnaires.

We sometimes argue that people don’t know us, for example, our significant other, we might say things like ‘you don’t even know me, so how can you love me’ for simple things, but do we really know ourselves and what we truly want. Or are we just wanting what others have, or wanting to be like others, to run away from being, or showing our true selves.

As Aristotle once said, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom”. So, to best understand my topic for research I have first asked the question, ‘Who am I?’. I am like many others in my research, still finding myself, however there is a saying that says, “No one knows you best than the people that surround you”. So, I have asked my friends and family to describe me in a couple of words, and their responses were that:

• I am quiet;
• I am talkative;
• I’m the life of the party;
• I don’t stand for stupidness;
• I have a kind heart;
• I am always giving advice (second point talkative);
• I am always doing something different and can’t make up my mind;
• I have a hot mouth.

These may all be true about me but sometimes we see ourselves differently and may say, things like ‘I don’t do that, or I am not like that’. This is because we don’t really know ourselves and what we think is an original version of our self is just a copy and paste of someone else. Some people see me as quiet this is because I choose to be quiet at that point in time, especially if I am doing something important such as school or work, I stick to myself and do what I have to because most times there’s a lot going on in my mind which I have to make sense of. This is because I am very creative but I can’t seem to figure out what I want to do with my life, so instead I do a bit of everything which keeps my mind overly active. I know I have a big heart, but most times my kindness gets abused, and my list about myself can go on and on because there is so much more to us that people don’t know, because we are too busy trying to be someone else.

Through observation I have come to realize that there are many people walking around with what we call many different personalities. We cannot just look at a person and predict their personality. This is because most times people show you the side of them that they want you to see. For example, someone may be the ‘class clown’ in front of others when in reality this person is hurting on the inside trying to hide their true emotions. There are even the bullies who prey on younger and weaker persons just to get attention or prove that they are though. Then there’s a saying about the quiet ones who tend to be dangerous. So, why do we pretend to be something or someone we are not.

Well, the good thing about personality is that we get to be whoever we want to be in any given situation; but is it the real you? According to Carl Rogers’s theory of personality, he uses the term ‘self’, or ‘self-concept’ interchangeably. He states that “the self (or real self) consists of all the ideas, perception, and values that characterize ‘I’ or ‘me’; it includes the awareness of ‘what I am’ and ‘what I can do’. The perceived self, in turn, influences both the person’s perception of the world and his or her behavior”. On the other hand, the self-concept does not necessarily reflect reality; a person may be highly successful and respected but still view himself or herself as a failure. According to Rogers, the individual evaluates every experience in relation to his or her self-concept.

Based on results from the questionnaire eighty percent of persons stated that their personality was based on the environment. The results were also similar throughout my observation among my peers and family members, inclusive of my children. For example, my eldest daughter is quite in front of her teacher at school, however at home she is talkative and very full of character. This shows that even from a young age we start to hide our true selves and become what others want us to become. So, what is the self?

According the Cambridge dictionary the self is “the set of someone's characteristics, such as personality and ability, that are not physical and make that person different from other people”, but are we different.

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As I have observed most people tend to become who others want them to be, or what society allows them to become. I say what society allows them to become because most times society fails us, everyone is expected to be on the same level or they get left behind. This is shown mostly in the educational system, where if you don’t understand something, you are labelled as a slow learner and forced to feel as if something is wrong with you.

A famous quote by Albert Einstein says, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”. So, there are a lot of people walking around unhappy, stressed, and even depressed, because they are forced to stay in jobs, or study something they hate because their parents wanted them to, or they do certain things because society expects them to. In the midst of trying to please the world while battling to save ourselves, will we ever find ourselves and how will we know when we do?

There are quite a number of inspirational quotes encouraging persons to believe in themselves, one of my favorites is a quote from Oprah Winfrey which states “You become what you believe”.

So, who are we really and why do we do the things that we do? Are we biologically hardwired to act the way we do? According to Atkinson and Hilgard’s Nature-nurture debate, it says, “The nature view holds that human beings enter the world with an inborn store of knowledge and understanding of reality”. It also states that “Descartes supported the nature view by arguing that some ideas (such as God, the self, geometric axioms, perfection and infinity) are innate”.

On the other hand, the nurture view holds that knowledge is acquired through experiences and interactions with the world. According to Locke, at birth the human mind is a tabular rasa, a blank slate on which experience ‘writes' knowledge and understanding as the individual matures. My view on the nurture argument is that, if at birth the human mind is a blank slate, then why is it that from the womb a baby has the knowledge to suck its finger for comfort or move around at the sound of noises, or even cry. According to WebMD, “New research shows that fetuses may learn to express their displeasure by crying silently while still in the womb as early as in the 28th week of pregnancy”. So, I do agree with the nature view that we enter the world with an inborn store of knowledge, however I also agree with the nurture view that we acquire knowledge as we mature.

Now emotions also play a critical role in who we are and why we behave and act the way we do. Psychology Today states that “our emotions can offer us clues into who we are as well as how we’ve been affected by our history. Many of our actions are initiated by emotion, which leads to the natural question of what emotions are being surfaced and why”.

One of the questions asked on the questionnaire were what do you do when you are angry. Sixty percent stated that they would act on their emotions, while thirty percent said they would analyze the situation, the remainder ten percent said they would cry.

There are now a lot of evidence that our emotions guide us and forms who we are. An example would be the current crime rate, it would appear that we have a lot of angry persons walking around, because it takes a simple argument to turn someone into a murder.

We can find ourselves, its right within us, and according to Psychology Today, when we live in harmony with our emotions, we become more in touch with who we are. We gain insight into the real core emotions that are causing our reactions, and we can be the one at the wheel, choosing our actions. Feeling is an adaptive mechanism to give us critical information. By focusing on emotion with compassion and curiosity, we can discover who we are and what we want.

In conclusion, I believe what we do in this life defines us. We all have a purpose for being here on planet earth, and until we find out who we are only then can we truly know our real purposes.