Who are you?

Content Warning: This blogpost addresses the reader directly, and encourages active introspection. If this article put yoy in a bad mood, read the last sentence of the page, and come back later with a fresh mind.

"Who are you?"

"Who are you?" is a question I have asked myself lately, and I find it a powerful introspection tool:

Who is you? What are you? What defines yourself?

Your response will be different depending on context. "Describe yourself" will get different answers depending on if you are in a job interview, on stage or with a friend of a friend. But in this case you are asking this to yourself. No one will be judging your answer.

One could not answer this question fully in a billion words. But trying to answer it will let you focus on what is the most important to you. Maybe what you would like the others to see in you? Try to keep it not about what you would want to be, but rather the current version of yourself.

One last thing: I learned while writing for this blog is that an idea will be much more refined and clear once you write it down somewhere. That is why, if you want to answer this question, I would encourage you to do so by text. You can do that below.

Remember that there is no wrong answer, and less so a definitive one.

So, who are you?

The content of this box is not recorded anywhere. If you want to save your answer to revisit it later, please use your note-taking software of choice.

What does this mean?

Answering this question is already good introspection by itself. But by analysing it, you will be able to go deeper.

What it says about you

What you answered is what makes you you. And from that you can start to piece together what made you the way you are. Is there a deeper reason to you being like you described? Could you find causes to some of those traits? You could like specific things because of a friend or a family member also liking that thing, or encouraging you to do it.

Or you can try grouping facets of yourself together. Try to see if a set of traits you have derived from a parent trait? Or do you identify traits with a common theme?

How you see yourself

On top of what you think are the most important aspects of yourself, the order you came up with them also matters. Think back to what you thought about writing first. Is there a reason why you came up with those first specifically? People tend to be more judgemental toward themselves that toward others. If you came up with the negative first, maybe that is the reason.

How you want to look like to others

This describes what are to you the most significant parts of yourself. Which of those would you like others to know about? And if there are any, do you do anything special to share those traits?

This is but a step in your self reflection journey!

Whether that was your first introspection or not, I hope it won't be the last! It is important from time to time to take a break from the tornado that is life and think about who we are, and what we are doing down here.

I encourage you to write down who you are in your note-taking app of choice, if you did not already. That way, you can come back to it later, to see how much you changed. Think about writing your deductions as well!

And if you are susceptible of forgetting what this article is about, don't hesitate to copy the whole thing! I don't plan on taking this article down any time soon, but we never know.

Whatever you wrote, remember that you are and will always be valid.