What Makes You Who You Are?

This was the question that started this website: what makes us who we are? What turns us into who we’re not? And how do we bridge the gap between the two?

“What makes you you?” is a huge question with many possible answers, many variables and many aspects that are still shrouded in mystery beyond current understanding.

Here’s my take on this:

At our very core, we are the electrical impulses running through our brain: the trillions of neural pathways. We are those pathways, translated into thought, speech, action and habit. We are our evolutionary drives to survive, adapt and reproduce.

And we are so much more.

We are a presence in the lives of those around us. The ideas, gifts and visions we share with the world.

We are complex, contradictory, and imperfect. We are also amazing creatures capable of understanding concepts like mortality, existentialism, symbolism, puns, and other devices of deeper meaning.

We are capable of consciously overriding our evolutionary drives.

We are tiny cogs in a big, roaring machine.

We are capable of hearing and being heard, of seeing and being seen, and of moving and being moved.

We are capable of change, growth, of recognising that our time on this planet is finite, and of making the most out of it.

At the end of it all, we return to dust.

And then, we are memories, genetic code, and whatever legacy we leave behind.

Every choice we make is a drop in an ocean, and those drops create ripples that pass onwards into the future.

At the end of it all, what will have made you who you are?

This is one of the topics we’re exploring in Purpose-FULL, which starts June 22nd and focuses on cultivating a deeper sense of meaning and purpose in our lives. Click here to find out more and register.

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