84. Who we are vs who we want to be

I recently took a personality test and noticed how much I’ve changed. It made me wonder, did I change as the product of society? And if so am I still being authentic? Even till today, there are still many things that I want to change and improve about myself. In that case, isn’t personality a very fluid thing? There is no one personality type that could define a person.

I learned once that there is a stretch zone for how much we can change. We can always possess new skills or adopt a persona that contradicts with who we are. These are not necessarily a bad thing as they could be useful in certain situations. For example, introverted persons tend to learn to be extroverted when the situations demand them to. However, when we fall out of our nature-self for too long and too far, we can feel exhausted and even stressed out. We still feel the most at ease when we are acting with our innate traits.

Should we then even try to change based on society’s definition of ‘good’? Or we should just stick to whoever we are and be happy with that?

I guess at the end of the day, what matters is we are happy with the person we’ve become. As long as we are changing for the better, I personally don’t think it matters if we are being ourselves or not. As long as I feel proud and that I am changing on my own terms, I’m down with whoever I need to become.