Here is a question to everyone out there, Can your personality (the one that you have worked on creating since birth) be altered by the people that surround you? What (if any) is the specific amount of time it takes someone to conform to the personalities of people around them?
The Oxford American Dictionary defines Personality as: 1. 
a. The quality, character, or fact of being a person, as distinct from an animal, thing, or abstraction; the quality which makes a being human. Obs.
a. The quality, character, or fact of being a person, as distinct from an animal, thing, or abstraction; the quality which makes a being human. Obs.OR
Lately i have been struggling with a personality problem. I have been going through some Personality/Identity crisis’s the past few months. Being so far from home, at college, and in a new area that is unfamiliar to me I have noticed that i have been picking up on more negative life views, and personality Traits.
I have become more aggressive in everyday tasks, and dealing with others around me. I know its weird, and your wondering why i am bringing this up.
While i was back home, it was very easy to keep things bottled up in me, and then slowly letting them leak out, but recently its as if i don’t care anymore, and i have just been letting this angry flood on too others around me.
And its something that i have noticed
The more people that fall away from me that i begin to grow in a friendship, the more aggresive i get.
As i sit here pondering what is going on in my life, and how can i change who i have become i start to think back to my childhood.
As Children we are taught that we are different for a reason, and since we are different we need to accept it, and be happy with it.
But what about life, turns us around, and makes us want to be everyone else??
Its the peer pressure that changes us, and its the surroundings and people we are put around in our lives that help determine our future self esteem, and personality.
“You are who you hang around with”
You become the people that you let into your center
2 Comments
March 30, 2008 at 7:37 pm
Just some input for you. I really do believe your personality can be change by who you hang out with. After creating bonds with certain people, you see the type of qualities that you would like to see in yourself, and change yourself that way. Or, sometimes, you change in a negative way because you feel like you need to conform, even if it’s in a bad way. If I may say so, you may be becoming aggressive because there’s no output for your aggression. When you were here, you always were able to talk to that person or someone you felt comfortable with in order to release your frustration. Now, I think you don’t feel comfortable enough there, in general, to open up to someone. Or maybe it’s just because you may be away from the people who kept he good traits and positive life views in you.
Maybe you really do need to come home.
April 22, 2008 at 11:26 am
honestly, you are experiencing so much frustration (expressed as anger), because you have it sooo easy back home. you didn’t have any real responsibilities or have to do anything you didn’t feel like doing. you could do whatever you wanted, whenever you wanted, which always makes you feel good. at college, you have to fully rely on yourself and there are many demands and responsibility on you. you can’t just ‘play’ all of the time. you were taught by the way you were raised to deal with frustration in an angry and agressive way from your parents. no matter where you are or go, you are an adult now and you will have responsibilities, demands, and many frustrations. the beautiful thing is that we have a choice in how we respond to life (which only gets harder, by the way!). you don’t have to live the way your parents do, but you do have to choose not to and be set free from that mindset. god says that we can bring anything to him, and he can transform us from the inside out making us whole again, you can be healed of this. you have to choose every time you feel frustrated what you want to do with that feeling. you can lash out and be agressive. you can take a minute to pray in your head and decide how you really want to respond (giving it over to god, and it gets easier every time you do it). or you can try to run away and avoid the frustration. i promise you that running away won’t bring you any peace and you will live a life of defeat.
you just have to decide what you want, to do the easy thing, or do the internal and spiritual work. not only is god great and faithful, but i know you have it in you, i can see it.