DISCOVERING THE REAL YOU

WHEN you look in a mirror, what do you see? Your own physical reflection. But does that tell you who you really are? Does it tell you how others may perceive you as a person? Do you really know who you are? Do you know how your personal behavior was established in the first place? Yes, how did you, as a personality, develop?

When you pause to analyze all the elements that shaped your personality, you may notice that many influences have been imposed on you​—either by other persons or by other factors. During our early formative years, most of us had relatively little to do with establishing our own habits and ways. So let us look at some of these personality-shaping influences that were imposed on you​—some of them long before you had a chance of doing anything about your own behavior.

GENETICS PLAYS A BIG PART

How much has genetics affected you? The DNA blueprint, found in the chromosomes that transmit hereditary characteristics, carries descriptions and coded instructions for each person’s development. So how much of your individual behavior is influenced genetically? It seems that there is still difficulty in proving any definite link between genes and personality. However, there are some approaches that appear to have merit. For example, a number of your inherited traits do have an immediate bearing on your behavior. Thus, some people inherit subdued dispositions, while others are naturally more outgoing.

A pregnant woman can benefit or impair her unborn child by her own actions, thoughts, and feelings. Just how much peace or irritation was thrust upon you while you were in your mother’s womb? How much did you learn from your parents’ tone of voice, the music they listened to? How much were you affected by the food your mother ate? In the event she drank alcohol or took drugs, how much was she affected by them? By the time you were born, many of your propensities were set and perhaps are difficult to change.

WHAT ABOUT DIET, ALLERGIES, ENVIRONMENT?

As you grew into childhood, certain substances in your food may have had an effect on your behavior. Sweeteners, artificial colorings, and preservatives​—all can exert an unseen influence on behavior. Hyperactivity, increased tension, irritability, nerve pain, and immoderate and uncontrolled actions are just some of the results. Pollution from automobile exhaust fumes, industrial emissions, and other poisons in the environment also shape behavior. Or, on a personal level, you may have an allergy that affects you quite seriously but may have no adverse effect on those around you.

In addition to these influences, your parents’ behavior, their likes and dislikes as well as their prejudices that you have lived with from infancy, have had an effect on you and have shaped your personality to some degree. The result is that many of your ways and your general outlook on life are simply a reflection of theirs. You tend to get upset at things that upset them. You are inclined to tolerate things that they tolerated. And you rarely notice that you copy their behavior until someone tells you that you are acting just like your father or your mother. Their financial and social standing also affected you, as did your neighborhood and school environment. Your friends and associates have had a big influence on you too. Perhaps a bad accident (to you or to a close friend), some local disaster, or even troubling world events have affected you. Or it could be that some tragedy, such as a divorce or a serious illness, has left a scar on your personality.

Can you, on reflection, identify any such influences?

WHAT PART DOES RELIGION PLAY?

Theoretically, religion should help you to be a better person, improving your moral behavior, ethics, and daily routine. Just how many of your values and actions have been affected by religion? While religion should act as a restraint on irresponsible, criminal behavior, many people are affected by their contact with religion in a different way. They discern a lot of hypocrisy and emphasis on material rather than spiritual values in churches and become embittered as a result. They may even become irreligious, robbed of spirituality and hope.

You may be able to think of other external influences that shape behavior. Just spend a few moments reflecting on any of the things that may have affected you until now. Can you list some of them? It is not easy to be objective and think in this way, but it is worth the effort and may be of help to you. How so?

Well, if you can identify a certain influence or cause for some negative tendency in your behavior, if you can specifically isolate it, you will be in a better position to control it, maybe even to alter it. If you can control, or even get rid of, an undesirable influence, you could become a different person, behaving more positively toward others.

Of course, that is a challenge. But since so many of the influences on your behavior have been imposed on you by other people or by circumstances you had no control over, why not take the initiative and do something about the situation for yourself? If it means an improvement, why not change what you are?