Personality Isn't Permanent

The most fundamental aspect of your humanity is your ability to make choices and stand by those choices, what Viktor Frankl called the last of human freedoms, “To choose one’s own way.” Choosing your own way has at least two key meanings: making decisions about what you want to happen and choosing how you respond to what does happen.

We reinterpret or reconstruct our memory in light of what our mental set is in the present. In this sense, it is more accurate to say the present causes the meaning of the past, than it is to say that the past causes the meaning of the present [italics mine]. . . . Our memories are not “stored” and “objective” entities but living parts of ourselves... See more

Becoming psychologically flexible is key to personal transformation, not overattaching to your current identity or perspectives. Becoming insatiably committed to a future purpose and embracing emotions rather than avoiding them is how radical change occurs.

Life starts taking on a whole new meaning when you begin thinking right now what your future self will want. Rather than making decisions based on your current identity, you could begin making decisions your future self would love and appreciate.

Who you want to be in the future is more important than who you are now, and should actually inform who you are now. Your intended future self should direct your current identity and personality far more than your former self does.

If you were to lose a person you love, you wouldn’t just lose that person but also the person you were when with them. All loss includes a loss of yourself. And conversely, meeting new people or entering new relationships leads to the creation of a new self.

Selective ignorance is something that must be applied if you’re serious about becoming your future self. Your input shapes your identity, biology, and personality. When you change your inputs, all of these change.

Seth Godin, who purposefully doesn’t read the comments on Amazon about his books. He used to do so, but it only left him feeling horrible and questioning himself. So now he has stopped.

Although the culture is rapidly changing, there are still similar patterns. By the time a person reaches their thirties, they stop having as many “first” experiences.