How do you define yourself?

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Is it by your profession, your possessions or your special interests? Society loves to pigeonhole us all with easy-to-read labels but how do you personally define who you are?

Do you define yourself by your job, or think you ought to? Or do you go with the Fight Club mentality that you're not your job but an individual who should be judged by your own characteristics?

I've never had a job, so I can't define myself that way. ( I answer the what-do-you-do question with, "I manage my investments." It's always true, even if the "investments" are a few extra cans of lima beans.)

Basically, I pay attention to my life. I live simply and reverently, very much like a member of a monastic order. Unfortunately, I'm not religious, so I can't be a "real" monk. Instead I think of myself as a secular monk.

Philosophy of life stuff, huh. My career keeps changing and being altered. In fact, it is hard to recognize one. I am clearly a fighter. But, it seems more of a pulling myself up off the mat than anything. I think defining myself is a problem for me. I resist defining and pigeon-holing myself into anything concrete, which maybe defines in a way that isn't too flattering. I believe in doing the right thing as I see it at the time.

Very interesting question.

I tend to base my perception of my personality and sense of self around my current obsession(s), so it can often change randomly.

There is no me. I have no self.

I define myself by my special interests. I shouldn't do that though, because my interests change every couple of years. My base personality, however, remains the same.

Defined by the indefinite. I like it.

I would rather say: defined by the context:

Old lady wants to cross the street
Have to clean the house
... at least once a week
Friends want to go there
Shake hand when you meet someone
Do some studies
[...]

I get this



I don't get this (apologies if it's something really obvious)

I extrapolated what I think Moog wanted to say: we are defined by the sum of our "duties" and "contextual reactions" rather than a person in full control of our will

I've never been able to define myself. People make categories to put themselves in, but I can't do that. I'm too all over the place.

I define myself by many things...
My religion: Mormon
My hobbies: Runner
Artist
Singer
My job(kinda): Student
My choices: Vegetarian
My age: Teenager
My diagnoses: HFA

Thats all the things I can think of right now. Point is, there are MANY things that people use to define others. The goal is to try and become all you can be, so you can relate to a lot of people.

I define myself by my lifelong love for The Kinks. I'm going to die a Kinks Fan at the oldest age that I live to be.

I'm merely the sum of all my parts. Like a television, only more complicated. I'm bits and pieces of every person I've ever met.

To put it as briefly as possible, I'd describe myself as a romantically mildly psychotic idealist with a rather dark mind.

...Yet, although I do have many dark thoughts, I always do my best to be very kind and polite to people I meet. Unless they treat me poorly, in an "enough amount". Then I snap and start thinking about revenge. I haven't acted on my thoughts... yet. It always feels as if it only is a matter of time.

I never defined myself by my job when I did have one. I tend to define myself by social group labels like EMOish dork or I list some of my characteristics