Beholder

Who am I?

Have you pondered upon this question before? What do you perceive yourself as?
What is your personality? How do you behave? What are your intentions? What
role do you play among your family and friends? What is your purpose of living?
Right about now you may or may not have the answers to these questions. But
how much do you really know about yourself?

Most of us have a rough idea about who we are. We know our attitudes be it the
active sort or the passive sort. We roughly know about how patient we are, be it
short tempered or tolerant towards others. We can observe our intelligence
through our test results. We can judge our appearance looking at the toilet mirror
every morning. There are endless ways how we see ourselves and what we
perceive ourself as.

But do you really think that the judgements you make upon yourself is correct?
Do you think you really know who you are? Some of us may have the benefit of
the doubt. There are those who have a certain level of rationale to make correct
judgements about themselves while the rest of us are not that priviledged. You

see, people make general assumptions based on their own knowledge. But exactly
how accurate is your general knowledge? Do you think your assumptions are valid?
It really depends on how intelligent you are and how much you know about something.
There will always be errors and discrepancies in our assumptions. Having said so,
can you really make valid judgement about who you are?

You see, we tend to perceive ourselves as who we want to be. We tend to reject and
deny the negative qualities about ourself. For instance lets say that I see myself as
the patient sort and Im a good listener. I would remember the times when I listened
and comforted a broken hearted friend but, I wouldnt even realise it when I yell at my
brother for criticizing my dangerous driving. Some of us tend to be vain and stare at
the mirror at every opportunity we have. Regardless of how good looking we vision
ourself as, it really depends on other people to judge our appearance. So as you can
see, we tend to distort the knowledge about ourselves. Only the important people
in our lives can make accurate judgements about us.

As for those who have a more or less accurate perception of themselves, I salute you.
But are you someone you want to be or someone you should be? There is a fine line
between want and should. For example, lets say you are someone who actively donates
to charitable organizations. Do you donate because you want to or do you do it because
others are doing it as well? Or lets say you have good grades because you have a
targeted career in mind or because you want to please your parents. Or perhaps you
have alot of friends, therefore you see yourself as someone friendly, but deep down
you can stand dejection and being alone.

So, do you really know who you are? Are you sure? Well I dont :(