Who am I
Who am I ?
When you reflect on this question ,I suggest try to stay away from religion and spiritual content.
Why I said that ??
My observations tells me some missionaries misuse this question to convert your religion by confusing you. No one other than yourself is supposed to answer this question for you because it is your own question. Definitely you can take inputs from multiple sources and people from different backgrounds.
You are the only one who can find this asnwer for you.
I suggest start from surface level of life in physical realties. It will provide you basic information in finding appropriate answer that is unique for every person. Start reflecting with basic information how you took birth on this Earth, your parents, mother language, your childhood friends you played with. Then take one step further how was life 100 or 200 years ago by imagining or reading. Were there so many industries then?? was there so many items to buy then??
This will not answer the basic question we are discussing here but it will provide basic information as raw material to process the information.
I suggest this as second step observe your natural flow how you get through days,weeks and months. What you naturally do while living your life. What you enjoy in your free time. Acknowledge your hobbies, your hurdles,problems and observe your natural skills. Observe what you can do easily, how you balance your body and mind. Remember you are not on Earth to copy others but still you can copy what you like to learn and makes sense in your own life.
Write down natural gifts you recieved by default. When I say natural gifts I am not talking about how rich family you are born in. Of course finacial conditions play a major role in what you become as an individual.
Without having resources one can not grow to full potential that nature has gifted to the person. Still always try to explore your full potential & chances are one can overcome finacial hurdles with consistently trying without loosing motivation.
I consider this question arise during midlife crissis and you can easily live your natural life till 20-30 years of age. This time span is decreasing with development of technology and material competetion. Still observe your life that you already lived on this earth whatever years you lived so far.
There is no straight forward answer to this question. I consider answer is tottal sum of all segments of life. Now let us reflect on segments of our life. I can mention few but you can add as many as you can think about. Basic segments of our personality or life could be
1. Hobbies that we enjoy as an individual
2. Relationships
3. Profession
4. Social interaction or associations
Hobbies
Hobbies are easy to observe or discover because this is what you enjoy after try few things. You may try many activities and shortlist what you consistently enjoy. I can mention few like Travelling, Gardening, Music, Writing, Reading, Sports anything you select after trying for few times.
Some people can even make thier hobbies a profession too but it is good to keep profession different than hobbies otherwise you may start competing. Hobbies has nothing to do with competetion.
Relationships
When I talk about relationships it is not limited to blood relations. I think friends play major role in discovering our true self. For a healthy relationship one must not require to edit person' personality to fit in. Either you are accepted as you are by others or rejected but modifying yourself to fit in can never make a healthy relationship. A true relationship do not care about social norms and what others may say about you and your relationship. You must have clear straight forward communication to have a healthy relationship. A healthy relation never requires middleman to form a relationship or sort out difference of opinions. If you estabilsh a relationship by hiding your true self or editing your true self it will never become a long term relationship.
Simple => Never establish a relatinship by pretending or editing yourself.
Profession
When it comes to choose a profession you must consider what you are good at by nature. Observe what nature have gifted you as skill set, physical capabilities and ease of acomplishing something. I can mention as an example how I see it in my own life. I observe others performing their duties and relate to my life by putting myself in others roles.
I observe Ram Nath is a doctor, he earns good but he may have emergencies to attend in middle of the night. Or he may have to run to attend a patient when he is enjoying on a beach.
Do I accept that?
for me answer is no so got eliminated.
By this elimination process shortlist 3-4 professtions that you may accept as your profession. Now it is fairly easy to choose one of 4 than wondering about a list of 50 professions.
I use this technique in many areas of life. Even in my major profession as electrican I make small sections of circuits or areas and start eliminating Ok this secion is correct, this section is correct and now I have small area where the prolems is. It is easy to analyse small area.
While choosing a profession remember that we spend 30-40 % of total hours of life on job, you must be comfortable and enjoy that 40% of life too. If you spend 40% time on earning a paychque to pay your bills, it means you lost one third of your life that you did not enjoyed.
Social interactions and associations
Society is very complex so limit what you would choose to involve in. Again I can mention one personal example, I avoid participating in religious celebration and gatherings. I like to have small but healthy social circle even it may seem like a dot, not a circle -lol
Competing social norms set by other people who want to sell their luxry products is not my thing but if you can afford without compromising the way you want to live go ahead. Always remeber less expenses, less installments means you have more time and freedom to live the way you want to live. This makes no sense to copy others and try to live their life neglecting own life.
I have only mentioned examples of 4 segment of life.
Who I am is sum of all segments of your life which is way more than these four I mentioned as an example.