What Exactly Defines You?

Just the other day, I saw a magazine headline on the cover that asked, "What Defines You?" I find that an interesting question. I would dare say that it definitely belongs as one of the interview questions for job candidates. Why? Because there really isn't a wrong answer. Well, almost...

For example: here are three pictures of Emma Stone. Each with a different color of hair. I am not talking physically defines you. 

I am talking about the real YOU! What you create as a person defines you. Everyone's creativeness is their own. Whether it is ideas, art, athleticism, children, problems...you own it. It is a part of your personality based on strength, values, actions, beliefs, which lead to your thoughts.

One day, I put the question out there for friends to answer what they thought defined them. It was fascinating to see how they all basically came together in their beliefs, even when they used different words. Let me use some of the words that I heard:

• strength
• music
• my word
• teaching
• family
• faith
• interactions
• morals
• beliefs
• pets

In my opinion, the world around us and how we respond brings out our uniqueness, which becomes our reality of how we have defined ourselves to others, as well as ourselves. Actions always speak louder than words.

People often say that this or that person has not yet found himself. But, according to Thomas Szasz, a Hungarian-American psychiatrist, the self is not something one finds, it is something one creates. This is a good description, however, one of my favorite actors described defining yourself more on my level of understanding by saying, "You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." 

 ~  Alan Alda