# What our identies are

Unless we're merely trying to survive, we're always [purposing](purpose.md) ourselves toward a set of [values](values.md), and we call that collective pile our "identity".

These values we identify with are an [image](image.md) we've [created](creations.md) through [self-observation](awareness.md) of our daily lives:

- Pastimes, consumer goods, [trends](trends.md), and heroes.
- [Physical things](reality.md) like [sexuality](gender.md), psychological diagnosis, race, or [social class](classes.md).
- [Friends](people-friends.md) and [social groups](groups-member.md).
- Long-term [purposes](purpose.md) like [career](jobs-1_why.md), [family](people-family.md), and [legacy](legacy.md).
- Raw [principles and concepts](values.md) or [understanding](understanding.md) of specific things.
- Absence of a thing (e.g., "not pretty enough", "stupid", "weak").
- Hatred of a thing (e.g., hating a father or [political party](politics-conservativeliberal.md)).

Things we identify with are often responses to our environment, and typically compared with other things. We frequently identify with how much we conform to [group standards](people-rules.md).

Identity has very little to do with what we *[are](humanity.md)* or [are doing](results.md), but is always associated with our [purposes](purpose.md). A person may work a job full-time and go to school but will identify with something they only do 5 hours a week or merely wish to do.

Even with multiple people doing the same things, they will regularly identify with [philosophically](philosophy.md) unique elements. Two people may identify with a company they work at, for example, but from entirely different values they relate with the company.

If we keep [living life well](goodlife.md), we spend more time *doing* new things than making conscious choices to identify with them.

The name for a thing holds tremendous [power](power.md) through giving [certainty](understanding-certainty.md) about something's presence. It [logical](logic.md) separation from other things represents into [how we see that thing](image.md) in relationship to other things, and at the farthest extreme can often create [religious implications](religion.md).

## Shifting

Whenever we experience new [changes](people-changes.md), our identity will likely change. In fact, major components of [personalities](personality.md) change whenever people make life decisions like [marry](relationships-marriage.md) or [move](home-moving.md).

Identity fluctuates and shifts around all the time, and is a product of continuous [learning](understanding.md) and [growth](people-changes.md).

APPLICATION: Slowing our changes in identity is a sign that we're [not growing](meaning.md).

Assuming we're becoming [more mature](maturity.md) and are mentally well, we tend to cycle through various identifiers over time as we [understand](understanding.md) more comparisons about [reality](reality.md) and broaden our sense of self.

Our childhood identities will combine to generate most of how we build our [personalities](personality.md), and the personality will persist even after we've moved on from the identifying elements.

We tend to distinguish ourselves as "special" compared to others. This may represent as a strong difference in [qualities](values.md), or it might be in how we [see things](image.md), or ways our beliefs are different from others'. Generally, though, more unites people than differentiates them.

With enough time and [introspection](awareness.md), certain values will surface to reflect what we like to relate to.

APPLICATION: We tend to identify with ourselves in the present tense, as if "now" us is more the "self" than the version of us from ten years ago. In reality, the [difference](people-changes.md) between that person and now is only the product of all the [habits](habits.md), [decisions](people-decisions.md), and [consequences](results.md) we've experienced since then. Those experiences are enough to give us more in common with our peers than our past self, and the future version of us will be the same.

We tend to make subconscious [decisions](people-decisions.md) that conform [reality](reality.md) to our identity, which hold tremendous [influence](influence.md) over our minds. Those decisions adapt our [expectations](imagination.md) about the future to forecast [past trauma](hardship-ptsd.md) revisiting or empower us to [succeed](success-1_why.md) through visualization.

The more we identify with things, the more we make *any* experience associated with those things personally associated (and therefore experience more [emotions](mind-feelings.md) about them).

If we suffer [addiction](addiction.md), that substance is our [creative](mind-creativity.md) constraint for *all* of an identity, meaning everything filters through it. This creates a type of animal-like essence as we neglect their [soul's](humanity.md) more complex [needs](meaning-checklist.md).

## Choices

A wide variety of things happen *to* us, but we [decide](people-decisions.md), consciously or not, *which* [values](values.md) to prioritize. Identity is the "greatest hits" of a person to answer "who am I?" and is one of the most important sets of [habitual thoughts](habits.md) in a person.

Our identities are *always* [decisions](people-decisions.md), though those decisions are often not conscious. We usually choose our identity by the [perceived benefits](purpose.md) we can acquire through associating with something, but we can sometimes identify through a strong [belief](understanding-certainty.md) in something we're [afraid](mind-feelings-fear.md) of that gives *no* benefit.

Generally, we do better by identifying with things we can [control](results.md) instead of things given to us from our environment (internal vs. external locus of control). If it's beyond our control or [influence](influence.md), we must [trust](understanding-certainty.md) other things to keep our identity compliant with [reality](reality.md). We're usually born with an external locus of control and must learn to focus only on what we *can* [control](results.md).

We have "authentic" identities when we have [created](mind-creativity.md) an original mix of our observed [values](values.md) that most closely conform to what we prefer. Otherwise, we can conform to our [culture](people-culture.md) by stating back and repeating *exactly* what we [understand](understanding.md) others want. This isn't always better, but necessary for [understanding](understanding.md) ourselves, and often requires us to reach at *least* [age 35-40](maturity.md) to get there.

APPLICATION: People who use clichés and trite sayings aren't being authentic with their [language](language.md) because they're [afraid](mind-feelings-fear.md) of [what others may think](morality-taboo.md) or what they may [learn](understanding.md) about themselves, and observers can see it clearly.

APPLICATION: The easiest way to detect what others identify with is to see them when they're experiencing changing circumstances. That person will [choose](people-decisions.md) to keep what they identify with, even when they [deny](image-distortion.md) or [feel](mind-feelings.md) shame over it. Often, abrupt [decisions](people-decisions.md) come *from* those specific identifiers they've finally [made a move](results.md) toward.

Nobody ever considers themselves to be average or typical. Even though most of what we are is *very* similar to [all the rest of humanity](humanity-universals.md), we like to think our idiosyncratic details have far more value than what we have in common with everyone else. It's sometimes better than everyone else (e.g., easy tasks) and sometimes worse (e.g., hard tasks), but we sincerely believe ourselves (both flaws and strengths) to be uniquely important in some way.

Everyone wants to be important, so they identify with whatever can make them important. Importance is the [value](purpose.md) *other* people place on someone, with each person trying to gain a [reputation](image.md) for something and responding to [consequences](results.md) for a personally beneficial end.

APPLICATION: We all want to be "special", but we're not. There are over 7,000,000,000 people on the planet right now, with billions more who were once born, and it's *very* likely that someone on Earth is or was precisely like you in every way. This fact makes most people [uncomfortable](mind-feelings.md), so it's usually [taboo](morality-taboo.md) to tell people that individually.

The [ideas](values.md) we focus on and [words](language.md) we choose play a *massive* part of our identity because they determine how we frame the [stories](stories.md) of ourselves. These decisions may be helpful or hurtful, context-sensitively, depending on the [results](results.md) they create with our environment.

APPLICATION: We control and associate with things in our environment, such as our bodies, [tools](technology.md), and vehicles, but those [results](results.md) are a degree removed from our [true selves](humanity.md), which are far more immaterial and tied closely to our [decisions](people-decisions.md).

Because it creates an association to everything we do, our name holds tremendous power, whether we hear it or express others' names. A name becomes the [symbolic](symbols.md) aggregate of everything that a person is.