Sum of the Parts

People are forever changing. If they want to admit it or not.
Even relatively small things can have outsized effects on our personality. I can list many of the stages in my life that helped make me who I am. But this process did not cast me in a mold and spit out an unchanging me.

I don’t know about you, but I ruminate. That’s right I cogitate my veritabilities. I interrogate my past: Why did I do this, how did that influence me, and how do I feel about it now? I’ll be driving down the road, and suddenly, a mini-epiphany will hit me about something from 1997.
One person I was having coffee with was conflicted about this process. “Well, this implies you’re not the same person from day to day!” I told them it was more a process that offered insight and occasional guidance. It wasn’t like it was going to make me shift my political ideology, diet, or anything significant. He was even more horrified now. Look, I said, are you the sum of your experiences, thoughts, and beliefs? “…yes…?” Well, says I,” On any given day, that sum is 100 percent, right?” He looked at me like he was trying to sense a trap I had laid. ” Well, OK…” ” It’s the same for me, but on any given day, the weight given to individual experiences, thoughts, or actions shifts around; they still add up to 100 %, but the values of the parts are different! See!”
He swallowed hard, left his coffee untouched, and didn’t eat the bagel he had ordered. He left the coffee shop, and I haven’t seen him since.

Some people have trouble with basic sums.