How do you know who you really are?

René Descartes, the French philosopher, mathematician, scientist and writer, known as the Father of Modern Philosophy, coined the phrase, “I think, therefore I am” (From the Latin: Cogito, ergo sum). Fast forward to today, and most people live according to a variation of this phrase: “I am whoever and whatever I think I am.”

On what basis are you who and what you think you are? Is it even true? Who is really pulling your strings?

Picture a mother-board or a system-board: the group of electronic bits and pieces that runs everything from cell phones to computers. It has numerous chips, circuits, nodes, diodes, and other small metal and plastic structures soldered to it which contain all the ‘working parts’ that allow an electronic device to function.

When you were born, your motherboard (your brain) had few of the necessary structures and working parts you need to function as an adult. So how did it happen that you now have all the thoughts, beliefs, world views, assumptions, expectations, inferences, biases, and most importantly, the values, that you use every day? Where did all your neural nodes, diodes and structures on the motherboard of your brain come from? Who installed your programming?

Who — or what — has programmed you?

This is an especially important question if you are someone who considers themselves to be a free thinker — spontaneous, independent, open-minded and conscious — or a “nobody’s gonna tell me how to think and act” type of individual. Those of us who have convinced ourselves we have created our own motherboards from scratch would be well-advised to think again.

All of your behavior — at work, at home, at play and in relationship — is a function of what you have on your motherboard and the programming locked inside it. Ask people how they came by that programming and they’ll say they did it themselves — especially those who would fight to the death to assure everyone they think independently about everything.

It’s not true.

If you take a deep, long look at yourself, you’ll quickly discover that, far from being whoever and whatever you think you are, you are pretty much whoever or whatever someone else wanted you to be.

Such an exploration will certainly lead to some interesting discoveries. For example, someone else may ‘own’ a particular node on your motherboard, so it responds only to what they want. Someone else may have crafted a particular part of your internal programming. You are operating on someone else’s values or beliefs, but have so much internalized them that now you think they are quintessentially ‘you’.

Who’s in control here?

Who is it really who controls what you think, feel, say and do? Who is it that influences your choices and your decisions? How did you come to believe what you believe, feel what you feel, and respond how you respond to people, places, events and circumstances in your life? To answer this will take some considerable exploration:

• Have you ever consciously explored the life experiences and beliefs of your parents, extended family members, past authority figure and others who had an influence on you in your childhood and formative years?
• Have you explored your experiences with your early bosses or leaders? With listening to politicians, the media, radio, the Internet, TV — all of which have probably molded parts of your motherboard in subtle ways?
• Have you ever sold out your own beliefs for a price? Who do you associate with and what does that association get you? Do you ever lie, cheat or steal at work? Did you ever marry for money? Do you jeopardize your health? Do you jeopardize your relationships? If so, what belief or story lets you justify your actions?


Renting out space in your brain

Most people have allowed others, often unconsciously, to buy real estate on their motherboard. As a child, it brought you mommy and daddy’s approval and acceptance. You replicated their programming circuits and diodes and soldered them to your own motherboard. Now you think, feel, and act the way they did, while not really understanding why. Later, in adolescence and early adulthood, you replicated others’ programming, perhaps out of guilt or fear. You’re still doing it today — we all are.

That’s why you maybe find yourself living life without knowing who you are: acting out other’s wishes; disconnected from your true self, because you have added so many beliefs, visions, thoughts and values to your mental motherboard that weren’t yours to begin with. Now you think the result is ‘me’. Is it?

Isn’t it time to gain first-hand evidence of whose nodes and modules are on your motherboard, so you can discern between being who you really are and thinking others’ beliefs and thoughts that are not, in fact, truly part of you.

Here are some aids to reflection on how and why you’ve been programmed as you are:

• Choose a few of your deepest or strongest beliefs about work, life at home, play and relationships. Ask yourself, “How did I come to have these beliefs? Do I recognize where they started out? Do they serve me well and bring me happiness, or am I simply used to them?”
• Take time out to consider how former bosses, politicians, the clergy, other authority figures, or TV and the media have shaped your beliefs?
• Explore how you came to have your current beliefs about money, career, friends, family, appearance, health, fun, love relationships, and spirituality?
• Ask what stories about life you have created based on your beliefs. Do your stories support fun, happiness, contentment and joy? If not, why do you prefer to keep your story over changing some belief?
• When you listen to your inner judge and critic, whose voice do you most often hear (mother, father, teacher, preacher, someone else)? What stories does that voice tell? Are those stories true? Really?
• Do you consider yourself to be a free thinker? How did you arrive at this belief? In the light of what you have found, how true is it?

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