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Most people spend a great deal of time, some in fact most of their lives, reflecting on how their own person is or has been defined. For some this subject becomes an obsession that preoccupies much of their waking hours.

Unless we understand our own character, our personal attributes as we appear to others, and to ourselves, achieving those things in life we desire and aspire to may be much less attainable or at the very least a more seemingly insurmountable task.

Success in our personal lives and our career paths may well depend on how well defined we are as a person. In order to achieve the goals we set for ourselves we need to have a clear understanding of who we are and what drives us to do the things we do each day of our lives. Does our personal makeup influence where our lives take us and what we achieve? One would expect so.

From the day we are born our perceptions of our surroundings and events that we witness or come to be aware of will be, in some way large or small, shaping the way we see the world and also how we view ourselves. Our thought processes and values are markedly influenced by each of these events. Through education and parental nurturing we learn certain thought patterns, certain impressions and evaluation processes that help us determine how we see the world around us, how we react and live with those surrounding events and values.

With maturity as days, months and years pass we acquire new insight, new understandings, and re-shaped self-awareness as local, regional and global events unfold. As a youngster we are often more sheltered against many of the harsher realities of life and thus have a far different outlook on our past, present and future and the world that evolves around us from one day to the next.

As we enter young adulthood we are much more concerned with how others perceive us and how we perceive the rest of the world. We become increasingly studied and more involved in social, political and ethical issues. Some of us assume a greater role than others in an effort to resolve troubling issues that indirectly or directly affect our own lives and those close to us.

As a teenager I recall having a sense of little purpose or self-worth. It was a time of great learning and the realization that the entire world in fact did not revolve around myself - what an amazing and startling revelation! I gradually came to the realization that the world was not veiled in utter contempt for the teenage population, that the sky was not burdened

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