Being "me" with conviction

thewiz

Active member
I want to be able to be someone who stands by his personality and his self with conviction -- someone who doesn't let much phase him.

Far too often do I alter my personality/persona to fit the group I am in interaction with. I just want to have one persona. One persona that I can be happy with and stand by with pride.

I assume this is part of accepting one self but I'm not entirely sure who I want to be or what I want to be.

Anyone ever experience this?
 

lunaticbinge

Well-known member
Yes I do. I really have no idea who I am anymore. Depression and isolation are major contributing factors here. How can you have an identity when you don't care about anything or have interactions with others to polarize and intensify your thoughts and feelings? Seems like my life situation has left me as a robot that emulates what is around it. No advice to give, but I can definitely relate.
 

Sinar_Matahari

Well-known member
I really wish I had read this before I exhausted my brain venting on my painfully long thread.

You say you don't know who or what you want to be? I think you have an idea. You wrote that you want to be the kind of person who stands by their personality with conviction. That's a very good start, I think.

I think that this particular desire shows that you have strength and dignity. The title you chose was powerful. That's what made me want to read your thread in the first place.

If you want this bad enough, you can achieve it as long as you put in a lot of hard work. Keep in mind that your opinions and your feelings matter. On your path, try to remember not to take yourself too seriously. You may run the risk of becoming a parody of yourself. I really believe that being able to laugh at ourselves can teach us to be content with who we are.
 
Actually everybody acts different depending on who they're with. I act different in front of my mother than I do around my best friends. And I act different around guys than I do around girls. It's how everybody is.
 
I can relate. I don't know who "I" really am... and even when I'm comfortable around a person or group of people, I still feel like a bit of a chameleon- just blending and trying to "fit" in with those around me.
 

thewiz

Active member
If you want this bad enough, you can achieve it as long as you put in a lot of hard work. Keep in mind that your opinions and your feelings matter.

Thank you for your kind words, :).
However, I always wondered exactly how one can "achieve" this; I never really thought of it as much of a clear-cut step-by-step task.

Actually everybody acts different depending on who they're with. I act different in front of my mother than I do around my best friends. And I act different around guys than I do around girls. It's how everybody is.

That's obviously true. And I thought about this extensively.. we act differently with our professors and bosses than we do with our friends, we act differently with our mother than we do with our sister. The list can go on. The thing is is that there is a consistency with our identity because we are all of those. That is part of us. We are a brother/sister, we are son/daughter, we are a employee, we are a student. That is all part of us, yes.

What I am having difficulty with is that I change my entire self with the people I am around. Specifically 'friends'. I have never (very rarely) introduced a group of people I know to another group of people I know. Simply because it would be too awkward for me. Since I act differently with both groups, I won't know which persona to take up. There is a clash of persona for me.
 
Yes I do. I really have no idea who I am anymore. Depression and isolation are major contributing factors here. How can you have an identity when you don't care about anything or have interactions with others to polarize and intensify your thoughts and feelings? Seems like my life situation has left me as a robot that emulates what is around it. No advice to give, but I can definitely relate.

I read robot. I am programmed to seek out other robots. To unite and detoxify the world of human.

I became fed up trying who not am I. Instead am I quiet. That is and more who am I.
 
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I can so much relate to this. I wish I was a stronger person, like not caring what people think of me, that I could rely on the self worth I have for the person I am, but I have a poor self image. Although I make progress, I feel that I start to not care what people say, It won't change my own dreams, my own lifestyle, and so many people do support me nowadays, they believe in me, and sometimes I wish I could look at myself, like the way those people view me.
But for most people it's hard to rely on your own identity. It's hard to know who you really are. The best thing is asking yourself the question, ''What do you really want?, What are your dreams?, What would you never do?, Who do you love?, What is important for you?'' Like those questions, and have an opinion and don't hide your own thoughts:), Tell people what you think, and never forget to say ''no'' when you should, And be yourself, and rely on that person, the unique person you are:). But ''I'' know, it's hard. Cuz who's ''I''?
 

philly2bits

Well-known member
I want to be able to be someone who stands by his personality and his self with conviction -- someone who doesn't let much phase him.

Far too often do I alter my personality/persona to fit the group I am in interaction with. I just want to have one persona. One persona that I can be happy with and stand by with pride.

I assume this is part of accepting one self but I'm not entirely sure who I want to be or what I want to be.

Anyone ever experience this?

This sums up a lot of my problems. I try to look deep and see what the real me is. What convictions do I have and how willing am I to stand by them? What are my values? What do I hold dear? Do I have a sense of honor? Does anything I do give me a sense of pride? What people do I want to surround myself with? What do I want to accomplish? I look inside and it's just empty.
 

thewiz

Active member
This sums up a lot of my problems. I try to look deep and see what the real me is. What convictions do I have and how willing am I to stand by them? What are my values? What do I hold dear? Do I have a sense of honor? Does anything I do give me a sense of pride? What people do I want to surround myself with? What do I want to accomplish? I look inside and it's just empty.

It's absolutely not empty. As much as I want to think I'm also empty inside, it's obviously not true. We just need to bring those values to the surface. There are evident reasons to what separates us from another person and values is one of those reasons. The real challenge is not being afraid or embarrassed of those values we hold. We need to come up with a way to stand by those values and not let anything get to them (albeit, we should keep an open mind at all times).
 
I think that "me" is in a constant state of flux and changes over time. Me in my twenties is quiet different to me in my forties. The world around us changes and we change with it. Do we ever get to a point of definitive "me"? I'm guessing not. That said, I'm feeling more in tune with who the "me" at the moment is, largely from being on this site. Being here forces one to think deeply and I've also posted threads and quizzes on stuff like 'what are your values' for my own benefit as much as anyone else's. I agree with lunaticbinge that depression can have an effect - I can remember looking in the mirror and not recognising the person there at all. And as freestylemonster says, we act differently depending on the audience, it is worth the effort though, to investigate who the "me" is so that we don't blindly follow the lead of others.
 

lunarla

Well-known member
I've been thinking about this quite a bit lately too, actually. I've recently rediscovered some goodness and authenticity that I thinnnnk I have. I know it's there, but the most achinglyyyyyy difficult thing is trying to project all that outwardly. And on a more consistent basis. It's not even really that I change my personality all that much, but I just refuse to put anythinnnng out there more often than not. It seems that I wait until I can feel that another person will be receptive to who I am. And that rarely happens. Or I just put out little pieces that I think mesh well with the other person, and omit everything else. I really would just like to be irrefutably myself all the time. I figure that would be a whole lot less exhausting. But it probably has to be formed like a habit. I'm so used to just stifling myself as instinct when I'm around anyone. It willllllll happen.
 
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