I Am or Am I?

One of the main reasons I tend to not like personality tests is that they seem to mostly test who you think you are as opposed to who you really are. After all, you’re the one sitting there answering all the questions. If the question says, “When at a party, are you more likely to mingle or sit at a corner and avoid getting noticed?” you can say “I’m the life of any party” and no one would know whether you actually told the truth or not.

Not you’re thinking, “Why would I lie?” right?

I’m not trying to imply that you’d purposefully try to affect the results of the test, but I think that many of us have an incorrect notion of who we really are. I can think of several reasons for this imbalance. One can be because we tend to pay more attention to our personality when we’re young and being judged by others and then as time goes on and other people voice their opinions less, we tend to not notice changes in ourselves. Or maybe we concentrate so much on whom we want to be that we don’t notice who we actually are. Or maybe we don’t like who we are so we don’t even want to admit to ourselves the sad truth. And possibly a million other reasons.

There have been times in my life when I’d call up a close friend and ask him what he thought of me in reference to a specific scenario. I’d wonder whether I’m sociable or if I’m caring and compassionate. Obviously since he was my friend his answers were biased but hopefully a little less then my own were. I wonder how widely our answers would differ if I took a standard personality test and asked a few close friends to take it for me. Do I come across the way I think I do? Am I really the person I think I am?

There are psychologists who believe you are only who others think you are. To me, that’s a really sad thought and I can’t yet fully articulate why.

I know that, like many people, I act differently around varying groups of friends. A girl I’ve known since birth will differ in her ideas of my personality from the guy I met in college or my classmates in my sign language class. I also know that who I am is more complicated than a test category. We all are. But I still wonder whether who I am is who I think I am. In the end, what makes me who I am, my thoughts or other people’s assessments of me?

Add to that mix the incessant conversations that occupy our lives about who we should be. Parents, teachers, managers, siblings, friends and many other people that have been in our lives pass judgment on some of our actions. They influence our thoughts, our behavior patterns and even our actions. Think of all the things you do to please your family and loved ones. How much of that defines who we are?

I’m afraid I don’t have a point or conclusion today, just many questions. However, I’d be delighted to know your thoughts.

Previously? Facing my Face.