Self-made

The weirdest thing about personality is that despite it being our most defining characteristic most of us never had any say in the personality we have. We never got to approve it or say that we were ok with it. We were essentially assigned it through genetics, internal chemistry and the experiences of our early years and then we have to make do with it the best we can.

I guess the same could be said for some of our physical attributes, but it seems to me that our personality defines us to a greater extent than our physical being.

At no point did I say I wanted to be introverted, self-deprecating and shy. If I had the choice, I probably wouldn’t have chosen that for myself. Even some of my more positive traits I’m somewhat unsure of. My dry sense of humour, I don’t particularly like. I find it, well, a little dry.

In most cases the religion we follow, the political party we vote for, the nation we follow into war, the hobbies we enjoy, the sports teams we support are passed down to us by our parents and our environment.

If you are a sports fan, you know the only right thing to do is to stick with the team you were allocated at birth despite the misery it might cause you. Indeed, a good part of your personality may reflect the performances of your team. Downbeat fans express that ‘it’s the hope that kills you’, or ‘we don’t expect much being a Spurs fan.’ Many a Millwall fan enjoys the notoriety by association.

Society will praise you and criticise you, judge you based on the personality you were allotted.

In some ways our personality is not just our own, but it belongs in part to the group, to those who know you or have known you. Your friends might patronisingly tell you to ‘never change.’ You might want to live up to the person that you believe that others see you as. If you’ve ever tried to give up drinking you may well endure the scorn of your drinking buddies. You will almost certainly anticipate such scorn, even if it never comes. They’ll think I’m boring now.

Many people find it very hard to stop being the child when in the company of their parents. Sometimes it takes the physical or mental decline of a parent for the child to finally ‘step-up’. I also find it hard to stop being the underling when I spend time with my boss. I have known my boss for twenty years and he’s always the boss and I’m always the underling. He chooses where to go for lunch, pays for lunch, carries the conversation, asserts the strongest opinions. In some way we are friends, but we are not mates. I would never give him a bro hug. I’d certainly never call him mate. He’s called me mate once or twice and it jarred.

I find it harder to be confident around people who knew me when I lacked confidence. I think they will think what the hell’s happened to him. Who the hell does he think he is. This is probably a false narrative but it’s one I run in my mind, nonetheless. The reason I think it’s probably a false narrative is because I wouldn’t think this way about someone I once knew who grew in this way. I’m much more likely to be impressed and happy for them than to carry any negative judgement.

I have lived with this version of me for over forty years. The version that was allotted to me. Only now am I becoming the person I want to be. Only now am I becoming self-made. The greatest joy is to be self-made. To be who you want to be, say what you think, do what you want to do, despite what others might think.

Society

One of the biggest impediments to being truly self-made is society and the lies that society tells us. One of the greatest lies that society tells us is that success requires hard work and a long time. And when you reach ‘a long time’, it requires more hard work and further time. It is extremely hard to become self-made when you spend upwards of sixty hours a week pursuing success doing something that you don’t enjoy.

Society provides us with rules and boundaries and etiquette that may not serve us.

It’s one of the reasons that many of us choose to move away from our home town. In many ways it is easier to break the tethers than to alter them. My son recently told me he feels he needs to move away from home in order to become the man he wants to be. He feels he needs to move abroad. I understand how he feels because I felt and feel the same way.

In a new society we are born anew. But this time we are born adult and we have the wonderful privilege of getting to choose the way who we are and the way we live. One day I would like to move abroad, most likely to Thailand. Then I will get to choose the football team I support – Port FC will be my choice. I will get to choose the religion I follow. And I’ll get to choose not to pick up a newspapers. I’ll get to choose not to watch the news. The contention between the yellow shirts and the red shirts will be nothing more than a passing curiosity to me. Mostly I will get to chill out being me, spend time being the me I want to be, the me I had some say in. I’ll get to enjoy being self-made.