The Effect of Our Words

I constantly find myself thinking back on every conversation I recently had, playing them over and over again in my head. I tend to overanalyze every word I say, most likely in an effort to determine how other people involved viewed me through my words. I overthink it so much that it brings me fear as to how my five-minute conversation could have completely changed the way people view me. 

An Ever Changing Identity

I have an ideal version of myself in my head, but it tends to change based on whose eyes I’m viewing myself through. I want some friends to see me as the innocent do-gooder I tend to be, but in other situations I find myself describing my life as an exhilarating party. Constantly exaggerating the late-night car rides and red solo cups to create a rebellious character I can pretend is me, but the constant changing of myself and my stories around different people creates a lost point of view… my own. It leads me to wonder who I really am, what identifies me? Is it really based on how these people view me, or is it more based on who I love to be around and the hobbies I’m constantly doing. 

A Fake Version of Myself

A hard part of constantly wanting to present myself in different ways is when those points of view eventually mix. The people I describe myself to as the partier start to talk to my innocent friends. This communication between different points of view creates social anxiety, leading myself to constantly review what each of them know, and what they’ll know about me after the interaction. How easy is it to drastically change the idea of who you thought someone was? How many conversations between two different points of view before my innocent friends see me as a fake partier? This constant situation of different parts of my social life mixing creates the underlying fear of losing who I really am. 

Losing Myself in the Eyes of Others

Constantly telling exaggerated stories about myself creates a false reality of where I did those things. I fear that this constant swap of points of view pushes away anyone close to me as they’ll never know what is my true identity. They’ll hear stories about one side of me, but never have the pleasure of knowing this fake social butterfly that I describe myself as. These constant flip-flops of what’s real and what’s not creates a fear of outing the real me. I want every person to see me in a different light, whether those characteristics of myself truly exist or not. I continue to manipulate myself into a mold that fits into anyone’s puzzle. I feel like a body of water filling whatever creek is experiencing a drought no matter how shallow I may become.

A Pure Identity

This falsified life I’ve lived due to my constant switches in flowing personality creates a barrier between myself and anyone I may ever be close with. Due to this barrier between myself and the world, I work to search for who I am without anyone around, just myself and my mind, but still, that is not me. The lone version of myself can never be the true me because the world is not lonely. Who we identify as is represented by how we adapt around certain people and what changes about ourselves across different social ponds. The only “pure” way to describe who we are as a person is to identify ourselves with the characteristics that remain constant throughout any social situation as those things about us do not change across different arcs.

Identifying Ourselves Through Our Memories

The problem with this “pure” description of ourselves is that it creates an incomplete version of us. We cannot create our identity based off of only those things that remain constant as that would separate us from our constantly changing ideas and pursuit of knowledge. A better way to identify ourselves is to view us through our memories. Our memories are the only thing that truly knows who we are as they have seen every side of us. Our memories can recollect important thoughts and ideas that we identify ourselves with along with the experiences that have shaped us into who we truly are. We can use our memories as a separate tool to better identify ourselves and who we are in this world.

The Power of Our Identity

This form of ourselves found in our memories mixed with the constants we have through our social life are the best way to identify who we are. Your identity is not to be shared with the world in all aspects as the world will never be able to truly understand the things that your memory knows about you. Rather, this identity is to be used as a path in our mind representing who we are. In the social circles that we find ourselves constantly changing in, we must remember not to stray too far away from the path of ourselves. If we are constantly adapting the identity of those around us, we will lose the meaning of who we are. When we find ourselves straying too far away from our identity, it is best to imagine us through the point of view of our memories.