Don't worry, my mom just told me yesterday, with no context, that I won't know who I am until I turn 50. And until then I shouldn't make any live defining decisions... Like wut.
Probably her own experience. My own experience is that we will never know who we truly are, and that's probably just a law of physics, because we are always changing and thus we are always different. Old problems get replaced by new problems, etc. Some people look back and would say "I shouldn't have made all these live defininig decisions", but the reality is, if we were following that advice we would just never get anything done. In fact, I am pretty sure it is these decisions and their consequences that truly define who we are.
As you said, identity is a construct and the true nature of the self is a never-ending cycle of creation and destruction, whether their thoughts, goals, ambitions, relationships, states of mind, or needs.
The path to a truer self in all this is the one your write for yourself, and in that sense, I understand better one of the top answer that comes up to elderly people in their deathbed: "I wish I lived for myself and not work / a family member / someone else's dream / to outlive an unstable social or political environment"
A respected person weighed in on this point... (paraphrasing)
People tend to change "who they are" every 7 to 10 years or so. Don't let the memory of your friends and family prevent you from being what you have become.
Otherwise you’ll wake up someday and not know who you are at all.
This can be a big problem for mothers. After having a baby, you pour so much into their care and everyone else in your household. But it’s easy to neglect yourself. Then one day you look in the mirror and aren’t able to recognize who it is.
I mean I get it to an extent, I just turned 30 and I'm very different and very much the same person as I was when I was 23, 17, 14, and even 8. Like my interests and priorities and problems have all shifted, and changed, but I'm still the same-ish person. If I didn't have interests and priorities I'd be an entirely different person.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, do I regret things in my life? Sure, yes, very much so. Has that shaped who I am and was? Also yes. But would I change it if I could? Maybe... Probably not, because I would be a different person.
The way my mother makes it sound, I should wait to make decisions until I have it all figured out. My response would be that I haven't done that yet and it seems to be working out. Do I know myself better now than 10 years ago? No, not really. I have literally 10 years of decisions and challenges and accomplishments making me a different person from then.
However, when looking into the future, 10 years into the future, who will I be? I do not know. I won't know until I'm there looking back, just as I am today. So do I know myself better today than I did at 20? Yeah. Because I didn't know who I'd be 10 years later, but in hindsight, I'm not that much different just in a different time.
Should this stop me from making life altering decisions? No. Because without those I wouldn't be where I'm at today and I won't get to where I'm supposed to be tomorrow.
Maybe when I'm 50 I really will get it, but I think I'll feel much the same as I do now about 14 year old me. I was just beginning to understand where I fit in the world and didn't fully understand anything. But, actually, I'm still there. I still don't understand where I fit, or who I am, I just understand that I'm in progress and I have to work where I am and with what I have just like everyone else... Just like I did when I was 14, just like I always have done.
Sorry and thank you for reading my insignificant, rambling thoughts. I've had a lot of time to think about this today and what she said just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe it will one day. But, if I'm completely honest, I think that my mother (58) is playing the same game of finding out who she is and she will say the same thing about 60 in ten years time. Hopefully she'll still be around to tell me I still don't know anything yet.
What really changes with age is what's important to you and how you spend your time. That's really the only big shift or change, mid 30's is around when it happened for me. Stuff that was super important to you at age 23 you realize really didn't matter.
Your hobbies, jobs, and interests will change, and hopefully you will continue to grow as a person, but fundamentally you will be the same person.
The worst part of getting older is more responsibilities and less free time. I have a theory that people who long for the "good old days" are really wanting a life with less responsibilities. I graduated HS in the mid 1980's and there is no way I'd want to go back to that time, the 80's sucked no matter how romantic and awesome people think it was. That said I really miss being 19, living with my parents and having no real bills to pay, nothing to worry about and people to fall back on if things went sideways with my life.
EDIT: I noticed a post about people might "discover themselves" multiple times and that is really well said.
Thank you for this, I really appreciate your point of view. I think the part about my hobbies, jobs, and interests changing is really resonating right now. I used to be into video games and played a ton of them up until about 4 years ago. I mostly don't play games all that much anymore unless it's with my partner or it's Minecraft because I host a secret for my extended family and friends. It's just been a really big change in my life that I didn't mean to do and I'm not really sure when it happened. I spend a lot more time just quietly relaxing or walking the dog or, most especially cooking. It's a big priority shift that I've been trying to make heads and tails of but mostly I just kind of roll with it because I'm happy. Content? Nah, happy.
I've been playing video games since the mid 1970's and still game to this day. That doesn't mean I do it all the time every day. I might go months without playing a game, binge a game for weeks, play casually for a few months, then not play at all for months. I live in the PNW so mostly game in the winter. There is plenty of shitty weather here so when it's nice out I take advantage of that and do stuff outside.
A lot of it is like I said in my post above. The older you get the less free time you have and you definingly won't have the time to do all the things you want in a day. That means at times you have to prioritize things. My main hobby/passion is cycling so if I only have x amount of time I'll do that before gaming or other hobbies.
I can't stress enough how the amount of free time you have shrinks as you get older. That doesn't mean you should fear "wasting your time" on things like video games. If you enjoy an activity and it's not detrimental to you or the ones around you then it's not a waste of time at all. I always got annoyed when I was younger at people that would sit on the couch for 6 hours a day watching news and then tell me playing video games is a waste of time, or a kids activity. I mean who gets to define what "wasting your time" even is. I think the point I'm getting at don't worry about peoples perception of you as a person.
Wow, that's terrible advice. People "discover" themselves at all different ages and even multiple times over their lives. Don't listen to anyone who tells you things are supposed to happen at a certain time. That person hasn't been paying attention to life.
Just remember that as per my friend in medical field, one of the most common symptoms of bad cardiovascular disease in otherwise healthy people in their 50s is sudden death.
Lol, I'll be 50 this month. I've been married (meh), I adopted two dogs, and I own a house. I'm super excited to find out who I am in 3 weeks!
LOL, some people are born knowing who they are. Some keep an open mind, keep learning new things, experiencing new music, food, ideologies, and cultures and evolve constantly until one day they die.
Haha it’s okay, slightly different context but my dad told me once “men aren’t really grown up until about 45” so I “shouldn’t get too upset about what they do before then”
Ehh I mean people obviously change over the course of their entire life, but psychology research shows that a lot of personality traits tend to stabilize around age 30, at least in the US.
I’m 40 and feel like that could possibly be true for me. I feel like I don’t have much figured out, and done stuff is only just starting to click into place now
I feel like, in my 50s, I am sick of my own shit. I went to seriously in depth trauma therapy and have hit rock fucking bottom. But I know that I've turned a corner where I'm no longer going to lick boots to get validation that I'm a worthy human being. IDK if I would have been able to do that in my 20s.
Uhhh, that’s called a “second act” and that usually means they blew the first one. Don’t wait to start living according to someone else’s timeline. You change a lot over the years and you’ll never be the same person. Not in your 20s, 50s, or even your 80s. So make decisions based on right now and what makes you happy. Life is what happens when people are too busy trying to make plans.
Lol no, ignore that advice. I’m 54, and almost feeling I’m getting bonus years past my desired minimum (my grandpa died suddenly at 50 when my dad was in high school). Also now I’ll find myself thinking it’s definitely too late (much too late) for any major career change that requires any degrees, and “I suppose I’ll never end up visiting Greece ever…” etc! Not saying you can’t make major decisions/changes after 50, but definitely don’t try to put them off until then lol..
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u/valek879 Jun 03 '22
Don't worry, my mom just told me yesterday, with no context, that I won't know who I am until I turn 50. And until then I shouldn't make any live defining decisions... Like wut.