What Determines Who We Are?

I began this blog in March intending to write something I’d post every Wednesday. I was late when I began, and I’m late again this week. Funny, I managed to blog daily for the A-Z challenge, and never missed a day. But the newness of maintaining that schedule was daunting.

Last November, at the end of the NaNoWriMo challenge, I felt like I do today, like I just got my life back. So yesterday, I took the day off and scoffed at deadlines and enjoyed lunch out with a friend, a fellow writer, and came home more enthusiastic to get back to work.

When I began, I included a couple of daily Horoscopes, only because they seemed appropriate for what was happening at the time, but it made me think.

What are the certainties that determine who we are? Are we the sum of unpredictable circumstances from birth, molded by events and environment?

Are we in control of who we are? Can I change who I am, if change is what I want, what I need? Or is who I am today the person I was destined to be, living the life I was fated to live.

Chinese Astrology is based on the cycle of the moon. The years progress in cycles of twelve, with each year represented by an animal. Each animal, and its way of life, identify different types of people, which give insight into our nature and personality.

Given the date of my birth, I was born in the year of the Tiger.

The Tiger personality is said to be dynamic, impulsive, to live life to the fullest. They leap into projects without planning, their natural exuberance carries them to success unless boredom sets in and the task is not completed.

Tiger people do not like failure and have a need to be admired. If spirits fail, they require a patient ear to listen until they bounce back. I do not see myself as dynamic, living life to the fullest, but in all the rest I am typically a Tiger.

When I wrote my ‘Y’ blog in the a-z challenge, I realized how I bounce from project to project, often without planning. I find it difficult to go back and finish, once my enthusiasm wanes. I can blame, to some degree, the extreme fatigue that can come over me without warning, but to be honest, I was this way even before I got a chronic illness, so no excuses.

Under the Signs of the Zodiac I am a Pisces. Pisceans explore the world through emotions, feeling things deeply, absorbing the emotions of those around them. They are very impressionable and it can be difficult to sort out what they feel from what others feel, leading to ambivalence and indecision. They need time alone so they can detach from the emotions of people around them.

Pisces people gravitate to the arts. They have imagination and great creative resources. They refuse to be limited to anything that inhibits their freedom of expression.

Pisceans are moody. They feel the height of joy and the depths of despair. For them, love and romance are essential. Although they need companionship, they also crave solitude, essential to their well-being.

I am so much a child of the water sign of Pisces.

Also considered a factor in personality development is the order in which we are born into the family. A Middle Child is both an older child and a younger sibling. They may model their self after the older sibling or set out to be very different. They learn from watching, what is acceptable and how to get along.

As the older sibling, they learn to be a caretaker and a nurturer, to take responsibility and to be a leader. This builds self confidence and they will probably get along well with others.

Less pressured than the first born, The Middle Child is taken less seriously, is less over protected. They may feel left out, jealous, even angry, and need the help of the parents to cope with their feelings in order to grow up feeling loved and happy.

A  new sibling that takes up so much of the parents time and attention, the Middle Child feels left out, feels overlooked and unloved. They may try to draw attention to themselves and can become people pleasers to win affection.

The older sibling may gravitate to the younger sibling. The Middle Child again feels left out, less loved by this rejection. They become anxious, insecure, and develop low esteem. This hunger for attention may continue as an adult.

The Middle Child needs to build a positive identity. Feelings of inadequacy, fear of failure, fear of success, may create a lifelong pattern of starting something but not persevering.

See, it’s not my fault I never follow through on a project. I was born at the wrong time, in the wrong order in the family.

Isn’t it strange that these three factors that describe personality could be so similar, and for me, so spot on. I was a nurturer, and well suited to my thirty year career in nursing. But away from work, I craved the time and solitude to create.

I always thought it was art that was my necessity in life, and it was until I got more involved in my writing. I see the world around me as inspiration to my creativity. I want to give it all of my attention, all of my energy, all of my feeling.

I have seen glimpses of that person I was destined to be. She’s a solitary creature, with depths of creativity not yet challenged. I think she had better get on with it, as time’s a wasting.