Why are we the way that we are

Genes don’t determine personality and preferences….or do they?

I may be missing some great scientific piece to the puzzle, but I’m still curious why we are the way that we are, and what determines it.

I mean we’re all so different. Everything we like is so different. Why is my favorite color ___ and not ___? Why is your favorite color ____ and not ____? We all like different food. Spicy, not spicy. Why? Who made that up? Is it the genes? Why are we just…like that? We like certain things, we cannot change us. Sometimes we change. But we just do. It’s not a voluntary choice. It’s something that happens to us. We don’t decide it, or consent to it.

It can put us in a bad situation if we like something, or don’t. Not anything too serious, like if we don’t like a food that someone specially created for us (for example)? Or if everyone in the entire party wants a certain type of pizza, but you absolutely cannot stand that flavor, but you don’t want to be the only odd one out, to force everyone to eat something else or someplace else or get an entire other pizza? Those are just food examples, but the same idea can apply to any other idea, like wanting to do something, some kind of hangout, and being the only odd one out who doesn’t want to or doesn’t like that particular idea.

Or even as simple as someone liking night walks. Can that put you in a dangerous situation? Yes definitely. Is it your fault you like to do that? No….? (Yes I know you can control whether you do it or not, but that is beside the point).

And there is the person that we are. Predisposed to be. Introvert, extrovert. Thinker, overthinker. Why?

Why is the #1 word here. Because I don’t know.

Someone can be more prone to anxiety, depression, overthinking, self-sabotage.

Not fair, is it? Fair is another interesting word. My mom and grandma never like it when I use that word. There is no such thing as fair, they say.

The world is unfair.

True.

So is it just the cards we’re dealt with?

At least we don’t necessarily feel the bad effects of our likes and dislikes. Besides people-pleasing, and the type of examples I mentioned above. What I mean is that we don’t feel bad for liking one thing or not another, in general, it is what it is. It’s okay. We live with it. We stay away from what we don’t like and closer to what we like, because why would we do the opposite? And it’s not bad to not like something, or to like something. We know it’s something we can’t change, so we never think about it and don’t worry about it. It’s implicit.

And when people choose to love a person, they choose to love all of that person. All of their predispositions, both what they like and don’t like, what they’re like. There’s nothing wrong with not liking something/liking etc. Just another part of who they are.

Who made us this way? Nature or nurture?

People who self-sabotage believe they are not capable of love, or deserve to be loved. They wonder why they are the way that they are, if they should be, if it’s inconvenient, if they should change…Who made them that way? Their parents? What did their parents do? What if they didn’t do anything? Then why are they this way? What in life, what experiences, if it was them, brought them here?