Who Made You?

"There is very little real liberty in the world; even those who seem freest are often the most tightly bound. Law, custom, public opinion, fear or shame make slaves of us all. - Louisa May Alcott.

I was having a deep conversation with a friend over the weekend. We were talking about why we make some of the choices that we do and discovered that some of our choices were made because we did not want to be like certain people that we knew. It is interesting how who we are can be shaped by both people whom we admire and want to be like, and people we do not want to be like at all.

My mother was not a great housekeeper. My mother-in-law was a great housekeeper. I had not been taught to clean, and so attempting to keep a clean home was a learning process for me. It is a skill that I started begrudgingly but learned the value of over time. Eventually, it became a matter of pride that I could keep a cleaner house than my mother, although it was never as clean as my mother-in-law's. Now, I value a clean, organized space. Two people shaped my life: one had a habit I wanted to emulate; the other, one I did not. Both influenced who I am now.

There are many ways that society and other people can influence our beliefs and values. One explanation is social learning theory associated with psychologist Albert Bandura. Bandura demonstrated that people learn behaviors through observation, imitation, and the consequences they see others experience. How a person interpreted and used what they observed depended on the person.

The same experience can produce very different outcomes. One child raised by controlling parents might become controlling. Another might become fiercely independent. A third might struggle to make decisions without someone else's approval. This is why attributing our behavior entirely to our circumstances can be misleading. Our experiences influence us, but they do not necessarily determine how we respond.

I think that as we age, we may become reflective on how other people might have influenced our values. Our strongest influence from others seems to happen when we are young. It is easy to still be hanging on to the feelings that we might have had during that time of being vulnerable that may not be serving us anymore. Self-reflection is having the ability to examine our influences and decide which ones deserve our continued allegiance. Some of them are best let go of. "There is no 'healing'. There is only letting go." - Unknown.

Influence is a double-edged sword because while we are being influenced, we are influencing others. Psychologists sometimes describe this as a complementary relationship pattern, where each person's behavior helps sustain the other. I suspect this happened with my own mother, who seemed to feel threatened by my efforts to keep a clean home. She would say things such as, "Women who have a clean house are not creative." When I went over to her house and cleaned and organized her entryway, she moved everything back right after I left. The change in my behavior caused her to double down on her own. In a strange way, we became rivals—not because we wanted the same thing, but because each of us seemed determined to defend her own way of living. “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster.” — Friedrich Nietzsche.

A rival may possess a quality we admire or lack, or they may be so similar to us that we constantly measure our progress against theirs. What is easy for them may be hard for you, which can be a frustrating comparison. It can also be enlightening as it forces you to examine your own weaknesses. Seeing someone succeed can motivate you to improve your performance or reconsider your approach. It can be a way to find the energy and give you a reason to push past stagnation and defeat. There is, though, a healthy way of doing this and an unhealthy way.

There is an important distinction between being influenced by another person and being governed by them. The things that we do should be things that we want to do. Not something that we do to prove a point. Like many of the things that we do, the motives for why we are doing them should be examined. Sometimes we spend so much energy trying not to become someone else that we forget to ask who we actually want to become.

If your motivation, like mine, started questionably, do not despair. It doesn't have to stay that way. I began cleaning out of necessity, learned to like it, and now I value it. Not because I was showing up my mother, but because it made me feel good about myself. Looking back, I can thank both my mother and my mother-in-law for their influence. I can say, "You inspired me to become better, but you did not get to decide what better meant," because that is for me to decide.

"I choose to live by choice, not chance; to be motivated, not manipulated; to be useful, not used; to make changes, not excuses; to excel, not compete. I choose self-esteem, not self-pity. I choose to listen to my inner voice, not to the random opinions of others." - Unknown. So, who made you what you are today?

Love and Hope,

Big Sky Baby