Every Piece of Who You Are

Who are you, really? How did you get to be the person you have become? Is it DNA, a birth sign or learned responses from your childhood surroundings; is anyone predisposed to become the person they are? If so, does this also mean we are like a ship blown about in the ocean of life without a sail, that we have no control over today or our future? What determines who we become?

Babies are born excited about life; they arrive with a survival instinct that surpasses all other desires, fighting to live no matter the obstacles they may face. Many arrive weighing barely a pound, yet fight to survive with a mighty force we can barely comprehend. This is how we all began life; with an overwhelming will to survive and the excitement of making it through the birth process and into life. You probably can't remember this, or the first breath of life, or the whispered promise of dreams to be fulfilled in a lifetime partnership with your Creator. No one does.

Do you still feel the magic of that moment you cannot recall? Can you remember the perilous journey and the great relief when your arrival was complete? It is unfortunate that we don't remember any of this, or that we imagine we never can recover those emotions that fueled the overwhelming desire to survive. Why is any of this a part of who you are today? It is, because we all arrived with these emotions and instincts; we were excited to be here, happy to be alive and filled with dreams fueled by hope and that magical promise of their delivery.

The road began to turn shortly after that moment. Everyone is under the influence of parents or guardians, teachers and finally, the ultimate architect of childhood, our peers. Their assessment is frequently cruel, driven by their own exposure to life on their terms. All of these events either lift us to a higher place or leave us with baggage to carry as we continue the journey through life. We didn't necessarily pack it or agree to carry it, yet it accompanied us on the journey.

In our early teens we began to hear about our birth sign, what that means and possibly what we are going to become; even if we did not believe that before we heard the news. If you were unfortunate enough to hear the negative rather than the positive attributes in your birth chart, you were silently granted permission to become the very worst you could be according to the signs. And that just becomes who you are; people will have to deal with it or get over it.

All of these things have some measure of influence over who we become in our life. But one thing supersedes all of this and has the greatest influence. It is our perception about life and all of those experiences. It is through the lens of your perceptions that you create filters in your life, and then make your choices accordingly. If you have lost the excitement and joy, you may need to alter your perception and discard the filters you have placed over your lens of life. Your ship has a sail; it requires you to maintain control and the ultimate destiny of where it arrives.