Thinking for yourself MoC • On creativity MoC

You are nobody so you can be whoever you want

Trite inspirational stuff:

You can become whatever you want.

But who are you really?
We get attached to a certain identity, a definition or portrait of ourselves in a particular way.
But what makes this identity, us? What makes me, me?
What I am, my beliefs, my habits, my character, are vastly a result of unintentional, haphazardly picked up cues from my surroundings when I grew up.

Who you are is not your true self, it's just the habits you picked up along the way

If we follow the zen philosophy that the self is an illusion, then it makes perfect sense. We've never been our true self since we were about two years old. From then, we became our habitual self. But our true self has no fixed parts nor fixed character.
We may have some genetic traits, sure, but the vast majority of our character, habits, and the way we behave in general is what we picked up from our parents, siblings, friends, without being conscious of it.

Since your nature has no fixed part, it can change.

This means that you can actually become whoever you want. It's just a matter of picking the right habits, and be in the right environment (by right I mean conducive to becoming the person you want to be). Who you are is not a finite, frozen picture. Only the patterns of thoughts, the set of behavior and habits, and the beliefs, that you choose to act repeatedly.

To become different, to truly change, you simply have to act different.
To behave different.
To think different.

It's simple but not easy. The longer you've been having your current habits, beliefs, and behavior, the harder it will be to change them. But they can still be change. All you have to do is take on new habits. Surround yourself with people who support new beliefs. And act your new behavior. Do it long enough and it becomes the new you.