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About a week ago, I had a bit of an epiphany when I randomly remembered something I heard in church once. My youth pastor once told me that people have a mask for every occasion. There's the mask we wear around strangers, the mask we wear around people we don't like, a mask for our friends, a mask for our family, the list is as long as you want to make it. Now the way he sold it, the masks were to hide our true selves from the world for whatever reason. While I understand his viewpoint I have to disagree. The masks don't hide us, they are us. The definition of personality is the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual's distinctive character. This makes personality subjective to each individual. How we chose to present ourselves to our friends, family, loved ones, strangers, whatever, those are our masks and they are each their own personality. They say who we are when we're alone is who we truly are, but at the same time it's just another personality, another mask. When, we are not governed by the standards of someone else, we are governed by our own. Granted, this is usually the purest of our personalities, the core we build around, but when all is said and done its still just another personality. That core personality is what I want to talk about. The question is, do we chose what that personality is, or is it ingrained in us from birth through genetics, out upbringing, or both? Personally, I believe that everyone is who they chose to be, regardless of which mask their wearing. I do believe that the world can influence these choices, but in the end, their still our choices to make. What do you think?