Personally, where I’m at in life I’ve found that I’ve put a substantial amount of thought into who I am and where I fit in amongst my peers — as I imagine most of my peers have also done to some extent in their lives.

I’ve spent specifically the last decade in social settings that more-or-less condition people of my age group to compare themselves to others, whether that be through athletic ability, physique, intelligence, or otherwise.

To my credit, I believe I’ve achieved in my goal of finding out just who I am in this world at this current point and where I’ve come from. By no means was it something that I figured out overnight, and for all I know I’ll be writing a follow-up to this very post 5 years from now explaining how everything I knew in 2023 about myself was wrong. Nevertheless, work was put in to achieve my current condition.

The reason why topics like this should even be written on is because I’ve come across a good number of people in my life specifically within the last few months that don’t know who they are and also don’t know where to possibly start.

Creating Reality

Consider your thoughts.

“What about my thoughts?” The fact that they’re not real.

Thoughts and feelings, while they are undoubtedly experiences that are apart of the human condition, are not tangible. They aren’t real. They are created and transformed into something that is real by means of talking, writing, and are in certain cases expressed through abstract art.

The first place to start when considering who you are, is to make your thoughts about yourself real.

The cliches can all be brought out here: “You are what you do”, “You’re the average of the closest 5 people around you”, etc.

Someone can say those things, judge other people, claim the cliches to be valid, and not truly assess their own life for its validity.

Write down and discuss who you think you are. More specifically, write down things that you do and the places you find yourself. Note the people you find yourself around most often and describe the tendencies of those people.

On paper, do you agree with their behaviors? Do those behaviors align with who you consider yourself to be right now?

Your Inevitable Potential

This is the second half of your self exploration, finding your aim.

Consider this question:

“Who would you be if you were everything you could inevitably become?”

I’d like you to answer this question for yourself, and if you feel inclined to do so you can reply to this post with your answer.

What is your potential, and more importantly, is your potential being shorted by your current self? What is your current self doing so that you can land where you feel you could land if you tried?

This is not an easy inquiry. How could you lead up to this?

Write an autobiography about yourself, know your past so that you can catch up your conscious mind on where you really are in life. Keep it private, and if your first immediate thought is “What if it’s a bad story?” I would still recommend you try anyways.

Finding yourself is the first and most important step in getting out of the fog in life, and creating order.

Best of luck.

-brandon