Recently I've been thinking about what makes a personality, the question of is a personality unique, and can I decide to change my personality to copy anyone else without having the appearance of a "wanna-be" with zero originality? This is what I've decided after three weeks of thought.
Everyone wants to be unique, special. The bible says we're all unique individuals, special to God. But what about traits, characteristics? Can we all still have unique traits and characteristics? By traits and characteristics I mean our personality. There are two sides that I see. I see an attitude side-such as upbeat, or serious. And then there is the physical side-such as smiling, or never smiling. There can only be so many combinations, being as their is not an infinite amount of single characteristics and traits. Where do these expressions of what's inside come from? Are we each issued a random mix of all at birth that we are resigned to for the rest of our lives? When considering the development of personality the theory of "nature vs nurture" comes to mind. However if personality comes about through experiences does that mean we are still resigned to the fate of our experiences? Can we choose? Or do we just have to take a back seat and see who we become without being able to really decide who we become? We're posed with decisions every day of actions to take be it-if we change lanes in any random spot on the road, to what we will eat for lunch, to what we will do in response to a rude comment.
So if we can control our actions and emotions, can we control our personality? I believe so. Therefore if we can control our personality, do we? We need motivation, reason, to control our personality. Therefore we must decide what we want our personality to be. How do we decide then? Do we just "try on" personalities like clothes? How do we do choose what to do in any situation? For example one might go to a restaurant and order what "looks good" on the menu. Another example is that someone might buy a certain make and model of car because they have seen it before and liked it. What if it was the same way with traits and characteristics? What if we see attributes we like or admire? What if we see attributes we are specifically adverse to? If we care to observe peoples personalities what reactions do we have to them? Our thought process might go something like "I like that trait", or perhaps "I never want to be like that". The question then is: do we ever apply or act out these observations? If I come across a personality that I am abrasive to I definitely "make a note" to be the opposite of that person. I would submit that over the expanse of our lives we simply fine tune or mix and match personalities we get from others. Does that mean we're not unique? No-WE decide what we want our personality to be. WE decide what traits and characteristics we like. However is who we are unique? The end compilation is very unique without argument.
We've encountered a host of people in our lifetime-in passing at the store, in childhood friends, in family members-we notice all these peoples personalities and add their traits and characteristics to our "board" of existent traits in the world.
So if we can choose who we want to be and take our choice from our "board" of options-are we all just nicely wrapped compilations of cheap, unoriginal, copies?
