学进去

In many ways, our memories define (定义) our sense of self. You first have a sense of yourself early in life, perhaps as young as 18 months, when you recognize that the little baby you see in the mirror is really you, and not another child. As you progress through childhood and into teenage years, you start to develop a set of views about your identity (身份), including how your body looks and performs, your abilities, your personality and your place in society.

While we are growing up, we start to create our own descriptions about the events we have gone through, or what I call the “life story”. Our identities are shaped by our life stories, as the memories of these stories gradually become a part of our sense of self. Of all these memories, the most important are “self-defining memories”. They are remembered most clearly and can help to build up our overall sense of self most greatly.

Learning to recognize your own self-defining memories can help you gain important insights about your identity. The easiest way to discover your own self-defining memories is by thinking about the events in your life that you are most likely to tell other people about when they say “tell me a little about yourself”.

However, self-defining memories are always changing as you experience more events. They may vary according to your age and what you care about in present life.

In a study, scientists compared older adults with college students. They found that older adults were more likely to feel more positively (正面地) about their self-defining memories, even if the memories were of events that were negative in nature. A similar study also suggests that older adults have found ways to make sense out of their life stories. They turn memories of troubling events into positive stories, and in this way, they make peace with their past struggles (挣扎). For younger adults, troubling events cause them to experience more pain when they recall them. As scientists have discovered, a self-defining memory does not have to be positive in order for you to grow from it. It’s not the event, but the meaning you make out of the event, that affects (影响) your sense of well-being.

Discovering your self-defining memories is an important step in dealing with your life experiences. By recognizing and making sense out of past events, your identity can continue to grow and improve how you see yourself, both now, and in the future.