I still see myself as being the same person I've always been. The only thing that's really changed is that reflection I see in the mirror each morning. I’m still that same 4-year old boy who, on a dark December night, sang his own little parody of the '12-days of Christmas', instead of singing it the “correct” way like he was supposed to…much to the chagrin of his mother and the anger of his siblings. However, in the (well over) half-century since that little boy sang about “free French hens”, I have learned many things. No, my personality hasn’t changed. I’m still the same quiet, introverted perfectionist I’ve always been (from day one). What has changed is how I view and react to “life”. For example, I’ve learned when to be serious and when to inject humor (although I still don’t always get it right). I learned this by trial and error. Many of those “errors” were, shall we say, somewhat painful at the time (my parents did not “spare the rod and spoil the child”). As I grew, I learned more and more. Each of these lessons “changed” me by pointing me in a different direction than I would have gone without them. Of course, not all those “changes” were for the good.
Each “change” (course correction?) in my life has “altered” me (either physically or mentally – the way I think). Most times these changes were negligible, but some were “life altering”. For example, getting married is really life altering. One is definitely not the same “person" they were when they were single as they are a year after they’ve been married (even more so after kids come long). While I never had the opportunity to personally experience that particular event, I have experienced many other events that have shaped me into the person I am today. With each of those “alterations”, I changed. If you were to compare that 4-year old boy to the person I am today (provided we both had equal scholarly abilities), they would not be the same person… and yet they would be.
Shuhak 