"'Who am I?' and 'What is my purpose?' These two questions probably represent the conundrum of all human life since the moment of creation.
The easiest way to provide an answer is to use the simple and innocent logic of a child's mind which has not yet been sullied and conditioned by the subjective slavery of adult vested interests.
'I am me. I am a project in the making. I am who I was+who I am+who I will become.'
Each thought we think, each emotion we feel, and each action we ever take is influenced by past thoughts, feelings, actions and outcomes. Each new experience our mind and body processes is never wholly new but is a kind of mental, emotional and physical 'add-on' that is determined by present expectations which have been influenced by past events.
Who we are at any given moment in time is largely in our control. We are never at the mercy of another's thoughts, feelings or actions, however, bad the situation. It is true that our options of response may be temporarily restricted but believe me, there will always be choices and options open to us; decisions we can make. At its most extreme, we may not be able to prevent a person or an illness taking our life, but how we exit the stage is very much down to ourselves, through the attitudes we adopt and the whether we choose to make our death a positive or negative experience for those who observe it!
A more applicable example to the majority of people can be seen in how it is possible for anyone to systematically change the overwhelming proportion of their problematic behaviour. Because every behaviour pattern is made up from 'Thought-Feeling-Action' in that precise sequence, the way for any person to change their behaviour pattern is to change the way they 'Think-Feel-Do' correspondingly. In short; 'think' either positively or negatively about any experience or person and you will correspondingly 'feel' either positive or negative; and will be more likely to 'do' to them/for them/with them, either more positively or negatively.
When I was young and short of wisdom my mother would tell me, 'Billy Forde, don't ever let someone else tell you who you are, because you are who you let yourself be!' I know that the term or discipline of 'behaviourism' hadn't appeared on the horizon then, so there was simply no way that my mum could have been aware of its stated purpose and benefits; except through the wisdom of her own experience. All of her life, mum's experience was always blended with positivism. It was directed by the most charitable of thoughts in her mind, that stirred the most sensitive of feelings in her body, and produced the most compassionate of actions towards others.
When I come to think of it, my mum, and her mum, and her mum was probably the 'Mother of Behaviour Modification'. At the end of the day, however old or wise one gets, it makes one wonder, 'What's new?'. I strongly suspect that each generation merely packages their expectations and experiences differently. I cannot recall how many new methods and ways of working I had introduced to me during my working life, merely to later confirm that I was already acquainted with that knowledge, but under different labels; as no doubt was my mother and her mother!
So, please take it from me and mum; the only person you are destined to become is the one you let yourself be. The one that you become is in your thoughts and feelings initially, and then you allow your new self to jump into action. " William Forde: April 17th, 2018.