Can you remember who were, before the world told you who you should be?

Can you remember who you were, before the world told you who you should be?
As a kid I still remember my parents asking me to be a good child. Their definition of good involved obedience, sincerity and many more of the good virtues that I am thankful they helped me imbibe. Moving on to my school life, my teachers had another set of expectations from me. And yet again, growing up and having a friend circle meant another set of expectations and criteria I needed to fulfill. And yet now, when I look at me, training to become a doctor, I still am following a rulebook of ‘hows, dos and don’ts’. A rule book of how I am supposed to behave with people: a different code of conduct for friends, family and acquaintances and a totally different approach for strangers. Sometimes, this code of conduct goes to the limit of telling how one should feel about anything.

And now that I look at it all in a retrospective way, I feel this question arise in me; ‘Am I who I am?’ or Am I just what the world has made me out to be? Education and learning mold a man, from a rough stone into a gem. But the societal pressure associated with all the growing up, changes us in such a manner that very often we have a preset notion that this will make me happy, this is what is expected out of me and this is how I’m supposed to be like. Most of our aims in life, the desires we harbour, are any of them really ours? The essential elements of our existence, our hopes and dreams, are we any of them? Or are we just living out an illusion that we have been constantly trained to have been living. Who are we?