At what age did you become you?

[Daunt_Flockula]

It is the whole "the child is father of the man" arguement. It is thrown at you so many times during your lifetime that it eventually becomes a self-defense mechanism. Change is scary after all. It is easier to encase your escapism with a social dogma than to face it.

[Molly]

I'd say everyone is changing all the time, every day even. I guess it's more about the rate or amount of change you're going through...
I was a completely different person 3 years ago before I had to go through a huge personal loss. Certain things in life can change a person drastically over night.

I believe that nobody ever reaches his true self.
Except some Buddhists maybe. Their whole religion rotates around finding their inner self, being one with oneself. And that process includes reincarnation, so it's probably a hard thing to do!

[xxkaliboyx]

I try to answer the best I can from my phone and come back later with a better post. But you are you at a very young age, you just don't know it yet.

I'm in a related career field. I have to sell to a population that what I'm selling is in their best interest. So in fact I have to convince a population that whatever I'm selling is good for tgem (without force). How do I do that? I study them, I found out what makes them, them. Ok, how do I do that? I find out their  values, morals and beliefs. Now I promise you that every person have these 3 traits whatever they are and of course they are expanded from there. I will explain those 3 later but they are shaped by parents, religion, needs, poltical, region, etc. All these are instill at a very young age. Yes they can change by something called significant event but your moral, view and belief are still there. Think about it, are your parents religionish? You probably will be too. Does your religion teach you that stealing is good if it's for a good cause? Did you learn that at a early age that you take into adulthood? That is one small vague example. But I stand that you become you at a young age. Your significant event will tweak here and there.

Sociology, anthropology, psychology are more source material if your on your way to a university.

Edit: sorry for my English, English is my first language

[Tiger]

I've thought about it before. My biggest changes were in 8th grade and in senior year high school, but I can still relate to senior year.

We never stop learning and changing. We are forever students in every stage of life.
Here's something I'll always be looking at in my career.
visitors can't see pics , please register or login

[Xant]

Edit: sorry for my English, English is my first language

Ironically, this actually makes sense after having seen how the vast majority of Americans and Brits write.

As for the rest of your post, I disagree with almost all of it. We cannot be "us" at a very young age because we don't even know how the world works yet. The biggest change comes when people reach the stage where they are capable of abstract thinking (each to the extent that they are capable of) and start making up their minds. This would be something like 15-16, and the decisions and worldviews are shaped by and with youthful arrogance. Over time these views get refined, until at around 25 people tend to have enough world experience to have complete enough models of the world and how it works to reach their final(ish) conclusions. There are individual differences, of course, and illusions can shatter when a close friend dies or whatever, and thus changing things up again. But in general, you'll have figured out the things you're going to figure out by 25ish.

[Golem]

If you ever stop changing, you probably just stopped noticing it. ;)

[Xant]

Of course

[Falka]

When did your opinions stop changing?

When you die. There's no magical age at which you become the truly "you", reach some final and ultimate stage of your evolution and development, which is not gonna change a bit in the next years. At the age of 70+ you won't be the same person as you're now, half century younger. And that's not the time what changes us, or at least not only the time. THe knowledge which we get, experiences which we get through year after year, that's what determines if and how you change.

Though at the same time I think people don't really change since a pretty young age, not really. Of course as you become wiser, more aware, acquire knowledge about "surrounding world" and so on, your opinion on a lot of subjects is gonna change, but everyone has certain set of features, virtues and flaws, which somewhat defines you as a person and which doesn't really change. I am and probably I will die as the same flegmatic, oversensitve my old friendget which I was at the age of 15, because that's who I truly am 

[Molly]

Of course you never stop changing entirely. The point is that, from my anecdotal experience, most people do reach a stage eventually that they can identify with even later in life. After some point you'd no longer look at your past self and think "who was that guy? Why did he ever think like that?" I'm not talking about isolated opinions changing.

But... what happens if a major single incident in your life at a middle age changes you in drastic way?
Are you still *you* after that? Are you the same *you* which solidified at 25 years?

[Mr_Oujamaflip]

I don't believe there is a definitive version of me. I've often felt like I'm not who I should be but recently I've concluded that it's because there isn't anyone or anything specific I should be.

[Xant]

But... what happens if a major single incident in your life at a middle age changes you in drastic way?
Are you still *you* after that? Are you the same *you* which solidified at 25 years?

No, hence:

There are individual differences, of course, and illusions can shatter when a close friend dies or whatever, and thus changing things up again.

[Molly]

Ahh, didn't see that 

[Armpit_Sweat]

I'd say 27 for me. 
Nothing really happened since. Saying the same, enjoying the same, and generally having no new ideas of any kind. It's all the same in a slightly new wrapper.
It's sad, but not that much. I love vagina, weed and visual entertainment. Good enough for me! No regrets. I just wish to keep those comming, on and on.

[Thomek]

Great great question..

To talk about myself first.. I think the core of who I am has been surprisingly much there from very early age. Probably since what.. 3-6y old? Imo the most important years.  Then of course lots of hard earned life lessons.

One thing though, I think I've benefited immensely from being quite mobile every year between 18-26 or so. Every year a new place to study or work, be it army service, studies abroad, or just a different university/school. It gave me the chance to kind of Reset who I am, and figuring out my flaws. What problems are truly my own, and what problems has more to do with others. Kind of starting with blank sheets of paper, allowing me to figure out who I am and who I want to be.

I think it has made me a much better and more interesting person in every way, thus my advice to anyone who feels stuck, or think they are at the end of some road: MOVE. Sometimes, it is your friends, or even those you love and love you back that keep you in invisible chains.

There's a great passage in a famous norwegian book by Aksel Sandemose. The last chapter, and it goes something like this:

- I was once on a hunting trip around Halfway Mountain, a relatively unknown mountain in the inner parts of Newfoundland.
It is strange to see how such a mountain becomes something completely different than it was, every time you have travelled a little around it and look at it again. You can get one thousand descriptions of it, and all of them are equally true.

I feel an urge to tell you this now. That the mountain is big, and that is has many faces, but the one that laid in chains on the earth, only saw Halfway Mountain from the place where he was.

[Algarn]

The time, the knowledge you acquire, and the experiences you live change you. And since we always live experiences, we can't stop changing or anything. If you stop learning, or living experiences, then your end is near, and then you'll have more or less reached your final stage. I changed a lot within 2/3 years, and I expect to change a lot again in the next 5 years, and this until I die.