Our society forces us to decide who we are. That might seem normal, but that isn’t way things have been for the majority of human history. In most other civilizations, “who you were” was already decided for you when you were born. In fact, who “you” were, you as a unique special person with a special set of quirks, traits, flaws, hopes and dreams, did not matter that much, and, for all intents and purposes, did not really exist. What mattered was how you related to the rest of your society -who your parents were, what they did for living, what you did, your status in the eyes of society and whatever deity you worshiped.
Today, for better or worse, this isn’t spelled out for us. We feel we have to establish who are, and get other people to confirm this. We live in a semi-capitalist society, so one of the main answers to this is to show people what kind of products we like to consume, in our clothes, in our conversations, or on Facebook. This is pretty convenient for the powers-that-be. I’m not saying some secret society controlling everything brainwashed you to have an unstable sense of self so that you’d click the "like” button so you’d buy certain shoes and click the “like” button on the official Marvel Facebook page, but it does sort of work out for the system, doesn't it?
Who are you? You might not have a clear answer to that question, and that’s okay. In fact, it’s probably a good thing. If you want to start finding an answer, though, some good questions to ask yourself first are, who do I spend time with? You can’t define yourself totally by your relationships with other people, and your friends or your significant other aren’t necessarily like you in every way - a lot of times, we spend time with the people we spend time with because they balance us in some way. However, the people we spend time with do influence us, in ways we don’t even realize, and the more time we spend with someone, the more their viewpoints, values, habits and mannerisms start to rub off on us. Some other good questions are, what do I do with my time? And maybe most importantly, what do I really want? The answer to these questions will tell you what you value the most. And the good thing about these questions is, you can change the answers if you don’t like them, even if it might take awhile. I wish you - and myself - best of luck in the journey to the point where the answers to all these questions are ones we’re deeply satisfied with. You are your own most important project. That might sound a little self-absorbed - wait, you might say. I’m not interested in constant self-improvement until I die. I want to go beyond myself, I want to make the people I love happy, I want to change the world. That’s good. You are the most important tool you have to do those things. Make sure the tool you have is a good one, so you can do good work. You’re not just watching the world - you’re part of the world.
