You are who you are, and who you have the potential to become

Who are you?

Have you ever thought about who you are? What defines who you are? Is it the thoughts in your head? You have probably had thoughts pop up that you rejected and that you thought were weird, stupid or disgusting. Maybe you were standing next to a cliff and thought to yourself, I could jump of and kill myself. Well if you're reading this it means you didn’t kill yourself. Unless you were actually contemplating it, you probably rejected the thought and said to yourself why would I do that? So I don’t think you are defined by the things you think. I think you are defined by the things you do or abstain from doing. It’s like Forrest Gump said when he was asked if he was stupid “Stupid is what stupid does!"

Who do you want to become?

Besides your actions defining who you are, you are in a way, who you have the potential to become. The future you, let's say you in 10 years, could potentially act in a very different way than the present you, in a certain situation. This is important because you want the future you to make better decisions than the present you. And you definitely don’t want your future you to make worse decisions! Think about it, if you had 10 more years to prepare for the situation you should have more experience, knowledge, and wisdom to guide you.

But I don’t want to change.

Unfortunately, you don’t have a choice. You will be molded by your experiences. You can’t hide from your life, you can’t move backward, all you can do is to move forward. As you progress in life, small parts of you die and this can be painful but small parts of you are also born. Trying to resist this is not a good idea. You want to embrace change, but you want the change to be for the better.

How do you become a better person?

If you think you lack the potential to become someone you don’t want to be, think again. Human beings have done some really bad things, I’m sure you can think of some, and you are human after all. Do you understand exactly how people go from being babies to becoming someone who commits atrocities? Do you not think an adult can become evil? Do you know all the ways someone can turn to malevolent behavior? So, how do you know which parts of you to let go of? How do you know which parts you should hold on to? You don’t want to lose the things about yourself that are good and helpful.

To become a better person it is important to strive to find the truth, to contemplate what is moral and to have a good understanding of the world around you. Take responsibility, first for yourself. Try to find sound principles. Once you find some principles that you agree with, try to find arguments against them. Try to discuss them with your friends or someone that is willing to have a civilized discussion. Avoid accepting contradictory thoughts, if two thoughts contradict each other they can't both be true. You might believe in a principle or assumption for years but stay agnostic. If new evidence convinces you to change your mind you should be thankful, you now have a better understanding. Be wary of implicit beliefs, sometimes you have the wrong conclusion because you made a faulty assumption. Sometimes you have crony believes, you can read about what that is here. http://www.meltingasphalt.com/crony-beliefs/