Journal of Life

This post is the second in a several part series on better understanding myself. If you have not yet read part one, you may want to go back and do that now.

I have provided some insight into the person I want to be. Many people feel that the characteristics one prizes is the best way to describe a person because what you dream will become a self fulfilling prophecy. I am more pragmatic than that. I understand that people are going to lean towards dreams. A dream is also a dream and not always achieveable. A ideal might influence a decision. In life, there are many factors that are considered before reaching a conclusion. Not all decisions are going to follow a persons’ ideals. Descibing prized characteristics can only formalize a small subset of the complicated interactions that influence the mind.

I am going to run off on another tangent, to describe a subtle but meaningful fact. The process of understanding who you are is simply enumerating the factors that influence your decisions. Whether those factors are experiences, ideals, values, morals, trust, confidence, rules or influence. Think about it. Every decision that you make, or do not make, descibes the very essence of you. I have chosen to contemplate philosophical life issues in my blog. I chose not to read about applied methods of software validation. I chose not to spend time with my friends. I chose not to live in the United States. I chose against devoting my every waking hour to reduce the impact of major complications affecting every lifeform in the known universe. Every decision I make, is also a decision that I am not making. Those decisions define me.

Back from the tangent, I am going to attempt to descibe who I am. I am going to try to decipher the other factors that influence my decisions. Here we go.

From all my past experiences, the memories that I am the most drawn to are those when I was appreciated. Appreciation is the only measure available to judge the value and direction of my impact. While using appreciation as a measure might work, it is a very pragmatic viewpoint. Appreciation is a source of motivation, one of the most powerful I have found. At the risk of appearing snobbish, I feel that I have been under-appreciated considering my many accomplishments. I understand the importance of recognizing accomplishments and giving praise when praise is due. I feel that our culture grossly under-appreciates the efforts of others. Unless, abstaining the younger generation from praise is a plan to ensure human perseverance and productivity in the future. Consider this angle. If society only gives praise to significant accomplishments and we recognize that acceptance, praise and appreciation are basic human incentives, then people will always push to achieve significance. Children will grow to be the best that they can be. Individuals will try harder to reach the goal. We can condition society to advance itself. This leaves a great burden of quality of life with the education system and the body that controls education. I think this is much bigger question and I will save it for another post.

I am cynical, inquisitive and generally untrusting. I have trust issues, I have since I was young. The first time my trust was betrayed, I began generalizing that I could not trust anyone. I attribute this decision to many problems I had in my life, including an underdeveloped level of respect and lack of social skills. I did give-up on others too quickly but it did result in an independent and clever (albeit paranoid) little boy. I was the cliche anti-social teenagers-are-mean story. Although I enjoyed sports, I had confidence issues and believed that I could not compete. I was not going to be bothered with an activity that I was not ever going to be good at. Instead, I tried to escape my life by watching television and playing countless hours of video games. I needed slow steps to break out of the shell I had surrounded my feelings in. Luckily, I did have at least one person I felt I could trust. My best friend, who continues to be a good friend, was able to show me the light. We spent a lot of time together. I became good friends with the friends he made at school. I started branching out, playing sports, participating in gatherings other than school and the couch in front of the tv. I grew more confidence as I was able to prove my own self worth. It was an amazingly empowering feeling. I got deeply involved in alpine skiing only a few years after I learned to make my first turn.

I am heavily pragmatic and realistic. I am always analyzing a question based on how it applies to the world we know. I am competitive. I never back down from a challenge. I could go on explaining my personality, but I have a better way. I took a personality test, which involved answering a set of questions about the types of decisions that I make. This test classifys personalities into sixteen different categories. Fortunately, my personality type (INTJ) describes me to a tee.