Fandango’s Provocative question is posed:

Is the concept of “you” continuous or does the past “you” continually fade into the present and future “you”? Considering that your body, your mind, and your memories are changing over time, what part of “you” sticks around?

Well first of all what is the concept of you? The answer that I found is that it deals with having an overarching idea that a person have about themselves. Who they are physically, emotionally, spiritually, socially and in terms of any other aspect that make up who we are. A belief is formed based on the knowledge that a person has about themselves, it changes has a person grows.

Well, that sums it up; a belief. What a person believes doesn’t mean that it is reality. Well, you may ask, what do you mean? My answer to you would be that if there is a choice between fact or fantasy; that fantasy will be chosen each and every time.

Let’s look at an example. Someone may think that they are god’s gift to women. But cannot maintain a meaningful relationship with a woman. A caseworker may feel that he is the greatest case manager but his case load have a high percentage of errors and has no influence over his clients.  Physically, you may not believe that you have body odor. But, when you forget to wash your armpits. You find out otherwise.

Whether those examples are good or poor, the idea is there, what you believe may not be so.  Now the concept of self would have some meaning if people knew who they are. Believe it or not, many people, in fact most people do not really know who they are. A person’s self-concept is usually noticed by others who are around them. The kicker is that those same others would use what they know about you that you have yet to recognize to their advantage, exploit you and do things at your expense. That will be the case until you start to learn something about yourself.

Once you begin to look at self and learn, what you find out may shock you, you go and share the information with someone close to you only to receive the answer; “I could have told you that ten years ago.”

Now considering that the mind, body change over time; the things that remain constant is your spirit and heart. This means that if you were a spineless sack of shit when you were in grade school; odds are you will still be a spineless sack of shit when you’re in the old folks home.

Now think about it; those that were bullied during their school days may end up being bullied on the job. But if they manage to get themselves to be in a position of authority, then they will become obnoxious.

Memories and experience is a part of us and depending on how you remember events and experiences, those memories may change according to how you want to remember what took place. Learn from the memories, or be a victim of it; the choice is yours.

But the good thing about being a human being is that when we choose we can be conditioned to act, think, develop different beliefs, ideas or concepts which can serve us in many ways at any point in our lives. A master of persuasion told me that people will change their minds/beliefs in a heartbeat. All you need to do is change the emotion that is attached to the beliefs or mindset.

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