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This is something I struggle with and am profoundly bothered that, in my 30s, I can't answer simple questions about my own personality. Things like: am I a morn

This is something I struggle with and am profoundly bothered that, in my 30s, I can't answer simple questions about my own personality. Things like: am I a morning person or a night person? How close am I to burning out? Introvert or extrovert? Do I actually enjoy travel? Maybe 10 years ago, I had solid answers to all of these, but now I don't. Or at least the answers change month to month. Maybe this is an example of Socratic wisdom: it's better to admit not knowing than "know" the wrong answer.

namaemuta 9y ago
I would say that it makes total sense not to be able to identify oneself in those categories, because they are white-black options and we are influenced by many variables to be absolutely certain about them. For example, you could be a morning person but there are weeks in which you don't sleep well for whatever reason, so your mornings are a mess. The same happens with being introvert/extrovert. What if, when you feel confident because things are going well, you are more extrovert than usual? what if you have a period of time doing public speeches, getting used to them and you get less exhausted than usual when dealing with people? What about enjoying traveling but not alone? or traveling with a purpose and not just for tourism?
montyf 9y ago
That's good, you're not the same person from day to day after all. As we all should know by now the continuity of the Self is mostly an illusion. Most people, however, decide once during their lives that they are, for example, "not a morning person", and never stop to revise their self-perpetuating beliefs. In our endless quests to categorize and label everything in the universe, we end up doing the same things to ourselves and our own self-images are often composed of simplistic and hastily-formed judgments and categorizations. It seems natural that people don't know themselves, an extreme (but common) example being a bodybuilder with body dysmorphia.
watwut 9y ago
Or maybe the whole morning person vs a night person is nonsense and it change with lifestyle, day program etc. And maybe are people rarely in two completely distinct groups, but rather on continuum - meaning your need for company vs loneliness, how much tiring it is to be in company etc is a.) rarely in the extreme b.) vary with circumstances (unless you are one of those extremes).
andyjohnson0 9y ago
> Maybe 10 years ago, I had solid answers to all of these, but now I don't. My experience is that as I get older I get less certain about many things, not more. I think this is mainly due to experience teaching me about the complexities that can hide below the surface of seemingly simple things. My younger self didn't know this - which is ok as he had other things to do. So it is possible that you just know yourself better than you did ten years ago, and that's the reason that the simple questions about yourself don't have simple answers anymore.
- rainbowmverse 9y ago
  It's humbling and exciting at the same time. You realize how much there is to know and how little you know. The big realization for me was that you can just decide "this is who I want to be," follow it while ignoring other possibilities, then try something else. You can opt out of the chaos of possibility and see how far you can go with one path before hopping on another rocket. You can't do all the things, but there is enough time to give full attention to one thing for a while and have time left for quite a few more things. Some people even manage a few things at the same time! I use a software synthesizer made by someone who is somehow a math whiz, programmer, and musician all at once.
devposter 9y ago
I used to believe I am a night person. Once upon a time I would remain awake until 2 a.m., sometimes until 4 a.m. too, hacking away on some interesting technical problem with no fixed time for when to go to bed. It was impossible for me to wake up before 9 a.m. My professional working hours were between 1:00 PM and 9:00 PM. Since I was working remotely, this scheduled worked fine and led me to believe I am a night person. About two years ago, I got a non-remote regular job where I need to travel across the city to get to my office. I began waking up early at 6:00 a.m. to reach office early before the traffic begins to peak. My professional working hours are now 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. My personal hacking hours are 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I go to bed by 10:00 p.m. I have become a morning person and I see no difference in productivity. If I had to choose if one is better than the other, although it would be a difficult choice, I would choose being a morning person is better for the sole reason that I go to bed at a fixed time and I don't keep hacking away at problems indefinitely until 4:00 a.m. when both body and mind are tired. But at the same time, if my circumstances changed and I had to turn into a night person again, I don't think I would have any difficulty doing that. I think human beings cannot be categorized into such black and white categories for many things. We are, by nature, adaptable species.
- buttscicles 9y ago
  That might not be as easy as you expect. Here's a relevant passage from sleep scientist Matthew Walker's book 'Why we sleep' (which I highly recommend): "Although every human being displays an unyielding twenty-four-hour pattern, the respective peak and trough points are strikingly different from one individual to the next. For some people, their peak of wakefulness arrives early in the day, and their sleepiness trough arrives early at night. These are “morning types,” and make up about 40 percent of the populace. They prefer to wake at or around dawn, are happy to do so, and function optimally at this time of day. Others are “evening types,”and account for approximately 30 percent of the population. They naturally prefer going to bed late and subsequently wake up late the following morning, or even in the afternoon. The remaining 30 percent of people lie somewhere in between morning and evening types, with a slight leaning toward eveningness, like myself. You may colloquially know these two types of people as “morning larks”and “night owls,”respectively. Unlike morning larks, night owls are frequently incapable of falling asleep early at night, no matter how hard they try. It is only in the early-morning hours that owls can drift off. Having not fallen asleep until late, owls of course strongly dislike waking up early. They are unable to function well at this time, one cause of which is that, despite being “awake,”their brain remains in a more sleep-like state throughout the early morning. This is especially true of a region called the prefrontal cortex, which sits above the eyes, and can be thought of as the head office of the brain. The prefrontal cortex controls high-level thought and logical reasoning, and helps keep our emotions in check. When a night owl is forced to wake up too early, their prefrontal cortex remains in a disabled, “offline”state. Like a cold engine after an early-morning start, it takes a long time before it warms up to operating temperature, and before that will not function efficiently. An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics."
wccrawford 9y ago
I am absolutely a morning person. I know this because I absolutely prefer to get up before the sun rises. And I prefer going to bed earlier than most people. I have more energy in the morning and like to get important things done then. My wife is more of an evening person, but has adapted quite well to my schedule and it's not nearly so clear for her. My wife is absolutely left-handed. She has trouble doing things with her right hand. I'm mostly right-handed, but I have no trouble doing things with my left hand, so it's much less clear for me. My point is that everyone has some things that are very, very clear, but not everything is clear. Don't expect to be able to put yourself into pre-made categories for everything. And don't be upset when you're more adaptable than other people. Failing to classify yourself isn't a problem. Being adaptable is an asset.
- spinsser 9y ago
  Thank you for the beautifully written comment.
- pbhjpbhj 9y ago
  I'm a morning person, but I like to go to bed once I've seen a summer sunrise; does that make me a night person? Actually I just love peace at any time of day.
  - sesqu 9y ago
    I'd say I'm an evening person, but I like waking up before the sunrise. I suppose that makes me also a night person. I'm constantly either a morning person or an evening person. Quiet daytime is nice too, sometimes.
    - 52-6F-62 9y ago
      Maybe you’re both like me— more of an “I don’t want to miss a moment” person
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 9y ago
tvanantwerp 9y ago
I think it's worth asking yourself, "What is the consequence of being unable to answer this question?" In most of your examples, the answer is likely: none. These questions are mostly some form of arbitrary categorization--the sort of thing humans love to do to make sense of the world. But these are just mental shortcuts, and best used for trying to understand others for whom you have little insight into their deepest thoughts and feelings. If your wife rises at 6am everyday, you don't need to deeply feel what she feels about rising early--just call her a morning person and move on to thinking about breakfast. For yourself, you are free to appreciate the nuance of experience because you have unfiltered access to all of it. Don't feel the need to categorize yourself, which can just constrain your thoughts and actions to those stereotypically within that category. (I've associated with enough -ism's over the years to realize that I don't ever want to describe myself with any -ism label again.) Really examine the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations of your experience apart from labels created by society.
- WingH 9y ago
  Reminds me very much of what Eckhart Tolle says. “You are not your personal history. You are not your story.”
  - untangle 9y ago
    > Reminds me very much of what Eckhart Tolle says. “You are not your personal history. You are not your story.” If not that, then what? Your aspirations? Your beliefs? Your intentions?
- thegabez 9y ago
  How can you say that not knowing yourself has more utility than knowing yourself?
  - GavinMcG 9y ago
    I think it's more that confidently moving forward without self-knowledge has more value than ineffectually trying to know yourself. If there were an answer, it might be worth finding, but as that project hasn't found anything promising, there's not much value to keeping on with it.
jrobn 9y ago
Don’t answer these questions. Each of what you listed is an identity you are trying to stick to yourself like some kind of bumper sticker. You become limited when you identify. This is hard shit. It’s not easy to shed these things when you grow up being bombarded by them your whole life. With companies and groups vying to stick their bumper sticker on you. This goes as far as realizing your body isn’t you either. You borrowed that from the earth.
aje403 9y ago
I think the article is just stupid "do you know who you are nonsense". I've been a morning person and a night person at and I've had different ambitions and widely personality traits at different intervals of my life. One of the whole point of buddhism is maintaining that we don't have a consistent identity. Claiming that you're smart doesn't make you dumb and practicing humility doesn't make you smart either. The actual smartest people on the planet can be overconfident a$%holes just like that rest of us. Socrates also refused to "play the game" and chose to drink poison over just moving to another city. I'm not sure if that's wisdom, maybe. He chose to act in certain ways and made decisions that reinforced that, as the rest of us do - and the world certainly takes more "kinds" than that to keep moving forward - so whether or not we should show conviction in our personalities or not is, I think, the wrong question to ask.
- psyc 9y ago
  Same. Especially since the article concerns itself with how others perceive you. WRT to others' perspective, I'm sure I've been a complete asshole, and the sweetest guy ever. I've been an early riser, and a 3rd-shift worker, and both were preferable and natural at different times of life. I've been very overconfident, and very under-confident; extremely introverted, and the life of the party; far too cautious, and far too risk-seeking. I do however believe there is a deep core, that has not changed one bit since my earliest memories. Those aspects would have little to do with however I may appear, socially.
sjg007 9y ago
I think you have to just make these things concrete by asking yourself specific questions. Live in the moment and take an assessment. Have you tried to be a morning person? This probably requires going to bed early and waking up early and probably limiting food after 5pm and caffeine before noon. Possibly limiting alcohol etc... Do you have to commute a long distance to work? Do you like company and seek people out? Do you call people? Do you visit other places? Do you look forward visiting other places? For work, do you find yourself getting irritable, overworked? Are you looking forward to a vacation? Do you have some kind of balance (gym, friends, family?) Do you work 12 hours a day on a project going nowhere? Do you like your work, your coworkers? I also wouldn't say that your personality is necessarily defined by these things either. I think personality has a couple aspects and is by definition multi-dimensional and changeable. It can defined by you to yourself and that as it appears to others. It easy to see personality evolve from little kids to adults. Perhaps you are searching and that's ok. I think you just have to find things that work for you and work for your goals.

namaemuta 9y ago

I would say that it makes total sense not to be able to identify oneself in those categories, because they are white-black options and we are influenced by many variables to be absolutely certain about them. For example, you could be a morning person but there are weeks in which you don't sleep well for whatever reason, so your mornings are a mess. The same happens with being introvert/extrovert. What if, when you feel confident because things are going well, you are more extrovert than usual? what if you have a period of time doing public speeches, getting used to them and you get less exhausted than usual when dealing with people? What about enjoying traveling but not alone? or traveling with a purpose and not just for tourism?

montyf 9y ago

That's good, you're not the same person from day to day after all. As we all should know by now the continuity of the Self is mostly an illusion. Most people, however, decide once during their lives that they are, for example, "not a morning person", and never stop to revise their self-perpetuating beliefs. In our endless quests to categorize and label everything in the universe, we end up doing the same things to ourselves and our own self-images are often composed of simplistic and hastily-formed judgments and categorizations. It seems natural that people don't know themselves, an extreme (but common) example being a bodybuilder with body dysmorphia.

watwut 9y ago

Or maybe the whole morning person vs a night person is nonsense and it change with lifestyle, day program etc. And maybe are people rarely in two completely distinct groups, but rather on continuum - meaning your need for company vs loneliness, how much tiring it is to be in company etc is a.) rarely in the extreme b.) vary with circumstances (unless you are one of those extremes).

andyjohnson0 9y ago

> Maybe 10 years ago, I had solid answers to all of these, but now I don't. My experience is that as I get older I get less certain about many things, not more. I think this is mainly due to experience teaching me about the complexities that can hide below the surface of seemingly simple things. My younger self didn't know this - which is ok as he had other things to do. So it is possible that you just know yourself better than you did ten years ago, and that's the reason that the simple questions about yourself don't have simple answers anymore.

rainbowmverse 9y ago
It's humbling and exciting at the same time. You realize how much there is to know and how little you know. The big realization for me was that you can just decide "this is who I want to be," follow it while ignoring other possibilities, then try something else. You can opt out of the chaos of possibility and see how far you can go with one path before hopping on another rocket. You can't do all the things, but there is enough time to give full attention to one thing for a while and have time left for quite a few more things. Some people even manage a few things at the same time! I use a software synthesizer made by someone who is somehow a math whiz, programmer, and musician all at once.

devposter 9y ago

I used to believe I am a night person. Once upon a time I would remain awake until 2 a.m., sometimes until 4 a.m. too, hacking away on some interesting technical problem with no fixed time for when to go to bed. It was impossible for me to wake up before 9 a.m. My professional working hours were between 1:00 PM and 9:00 PM. Since I was working remotely, this scheduled worked fine and led me to believe I am a night person. About two years ago, I got a non-remote regular job where I need to travel across the city to get to my office. I began waking up early at 6:00 a.m. to reach office early before the traffic begins to peak. My professional working hours are now 6:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. My personal hacking hours are 6:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. I go to bed by 10:00 p.m. I have become a morning person and I see no difference in productivity. If I had to choose if one is better than the other, although it would be a difficult choice, I would choose being a morning person is better for the sole reason that I go to bed at a fixed time and I don't keep hacking away at problems indefinitely until 4:00 a.m. when both body and mind are tired. But at the same time, if my circumstances changed and I had to turn into a night person again, I don't think I would have any difficulty doing that. I think human beings cannot be categorized into such black and white categories for many things. We are, by nature, adaptable species.

buttscicles 9y ago
That might not be as easy as you expect. Here's a relevant passage from sleep scientist Matthew Walker's book 'Why we sleep' (which I highly recommend): "Although every human being displays an unyielding twenty-four-hour pattern, the respective peak and trough points are strikingly different from one individual to the next. For some people, their peak of wakefulness arrives early in the day, and their sleepiness trough arrives early at night. These are “morning types,” and make up about 40 percent of the populace. They prefer to wake at or around dawn, are happy to do so, and function optimally at this time of day. Others are “evening types,”and account for approximately 30 percent of the population. They naturally prefer going to bed late and subsequently wake up late the following morning, or even in the afternoon. The remaining 30 percent of people lie somewhere in between morning and evening types, with a slight leaning toward eveningness, like myself. You may colloquially know these two types of people as “morning larks”and “night owls,”respectively. Unlike morning larks, night owls are frequently incapable of falling asleep early at night, no matter how hard they try. It is only in the early-morning hours that owls can drift off. Having not fallen asleep until late, owls of course strongly dislike waking up early. They are unable to function well at this time, one cause of which is that, despite being “awake,”their brain remains in a more sleep-like state throughout the early morning. This is especially true of a region called the prefrontal cortex, which sits above the eyes, and can be thought of as the head office of the brain. The prefrontal cortex controls high-level thought and logical reasoning, and helps keep our emotions in check. When a night owl is forced to wake up too early, their prefrontal cortex remains in a disabled, “offline”state. Like a cold engine after an early-morning start, it takes a long time before it warms up to operating temperature, and before that will not function efficiently. An adult’s owlness or larkness, also known as their chronotype, is strongly determined by genetics."

wccrawford 9y ago

I am absolutely a morning person. I know this because I absolutely prefer to get up before the sun rises. And I prefer going to bed earlier than most people. I have more energy in the morning and like to get important things done then. My wife is more of an evening person, but has adapted quite well to my schedule and it's not nearly so clear for her. My wife is absolutely left-handed. She has trouble doing things with her right hand. I'm mostly right-handed, but I have no trouble doing things with my left hand, so it's much less clear for me. My point is that everyone has some things that are very, very clear, but not everything is clear. Don't expect to be able to put yourself into pre-made categories for everything. And don't be upset when you're more adaptable than other people. Failing to classify yourself isn't a problem. Being adaptable is an asset.

spinsser 9y ago
Thank you for the beautifully written comment.
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
I'm a morning person, but I like to go to bed once I've seen a summer sunrise; does that make me a night person? Actually I just love peace at any time of day.
- sesqu 9y ago
  I'd say I'm an evening person, but I like waking up before the sunrise. I suppose that makes me also a night person. I'm constantly either a morning person or an evening person. Quiet daytime is nice too, sometimes.
  - 52-6F-62 9y ago
    Maybe you’re both like me— more of an “I don’t want to miss a moment” person
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
deleted 9y ago

tvanantwerp 9y ago

I think it's worth asking yourself, "What is the consequence of being unable to answer this question?" In most of your examples, the answer is likely: none. These questions are mostly some form of arbitrary categorization--the sort of thing humans love to do to make sense of the world. But these are just mental shortcuts, and best used for trying to understand others for whom you have little insight into their deepest thoughts and feelings. If your wife rises at 6am everyday, you don't need to deeply feel what she feels about rising early--just call her a morning person and move on to thinking about breakfast. For yourself, you are free to appreciate the nuance of experience because you have unfiltered access to all of it. Don't feel the need to categorize yourself, which can just constrain your thoughts and actions to those stereotypically within that category. (I've associated with enough -ism's over the years to realize that I don't ever want to describe myself with any -ism label again.) Really examine the thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations of your experience apart from labels created by society.

WingH 9y ago
Reminds me very much of what Eckhart Tolle says. “You are not your personal history. You are not your story.”
- untangle 9y ago
  > Reminds me very much of what Eckhart Tolle says. “You are not your personal history. You are not your story.” If not that, then what? Your aspirations? Your beliefs? Your intentions?
thegabez 9y ago
How can you say that not knowing yourself has more utility than knowing yourself?
- GavinMcG 9y ago
  I think it's more that confidently moving forward without self-knowledge has more value than ineffectually trying to know yourself. If there were an answer, it might be worth finding, but as that project hasn't found anything promising, there's not much value to keeping on with it.

jrobn 9y ago

Don’t answer these questions. Each of what you listed is an identity you are trying to stick to yourself like some kind of bumper sticker. You become limited when you identify. This is hard shit. It’s not easy to shed these things when you grow up being bombarded by them your whole life. With companies and groups vying to stick their bumper sticker on you. This goes as far as realizing your body isn’t you either. You borrowed that from the earth.

aje403 9y ago

I think the article is just stupid "do you know who you are nonsense". I've been a morning person and a night person at and I've had different ambitions and widely personality traits at different intervals of my life. One of the whole point of buddhism is maintaining that we don't have a consistent identity. Claiming that you're smart doesn't make you dumb and practicing humility doesn't make you smart either. The actual smartest people on the planet can be overconfident a$%holes just like that rest of us. Socrates also refused to "play the game" and chose to drink poison over just moving to another city. I'm not sure if that's wisdom, maybe. He chose to act in certain ways and made decisions that reinforced that, as the rest of us do - and the world certainly takes more "kinds" than that to keep moving forward - so whether or not we should show conviction in our personalities or not is, I think, the wrong question to ask.

psyc 9y ago
Same. Especially since the article concerns itself with how others perceive you. WRT to others' perspective, I'm sure I've been a complete asshole, and the sweetest guy ever. I've been an early riser, and a 3rd-shift worker, and both were preferable and natural at different times of life. I've been very overconfident, and very under-confident; extremely introverted, and the life of the party; far too cautious, and far too risk-seeking. I do however believe there is a deep core, that has not changed one bit since my earliest memories. Those aspects would have little to do with however I may appear, socially.

sjg007 9y ago

I think you have to just make these things concrete by asking yourself specific questions. Live in the moment and take an assessment. Have you tried to be a morning person? This probably requires going to bed early and waking up early and probably limiting food after 5pm and caffeine before noon. Possibly limiting alcohol etc... Do you have to commute a long distance to work? Do you like company and seek people out? Do you call people? Do you visit other places? Do you look forward visiting other places? For work, do you find yourself getting irritable, overworked? Are you looking forward to a vacation? Do you have some kind of balance (gym, friends, family?) Do you work 12 hours a day on a project going nowhere? Do you like your work, your coworkers? I also wouldn't say that your personality is necessarily defined by these things either. I think personality has a couple aspects and is by definition multi-dimensional and changeable. It can defined by you to yourself and that as it appears to others. It easy to see personality evolve from little kids to adults. Perhaps you are searching and that's ok. I think you just have to find things that work for you and work for your goals.