What Makes Me, Me

I generally regard myself as a disorganized person. I believe this is an innate trait for me. As far as I can remember, I've always been disorganized. But throughout my life, I developed some ways to cope with it, especially after having some negative experiences. So what was the main factor that made me disorganized person? I strongly believe that it was a combination of both nature and nurture, but if I had to choose one, I would have to say that the genes that came from my father have a big impact on this trait.

My father is also a disorganized person. I am very similar to him in this regard. On the other hand, my mother is extremely organized. She's someone who tries to keep everything as organized as possible. Obviously, saying that one of my parents also shows this trait is not enough evidence to support this theory, but there's more.

The most important reason I believe the nature is the primary factor is my brother. He's four years younger than me and just like my mother, he's one of the most organized people I've seen in my life. He's my absolute opposite. But the fact is, we have been brought up in the same house, with the same parents. Most of the time, we even shared the same room. And our parents' behavior towards us was almost identical. As I was interacting constantly with my brother, one would think that either my or his behaviors should have been changed in one way or another. But it's not the case. Of course there could be some minor changes that I could not observe but in general, we always have been completely different in terms of being organized. This is the main reason that I believe heredity is the dominant factor.

The other reason is my parents' behavior toward us. I've read some theories c...

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...determine our faith. But they can create a predisposition towards a trait that gets triggered something in the environment. For example a child may have a genetic tendency towards shyness. And if faced with a domineering teacher, the child may become even more withdrawn. In my personal case, my genetic tendency was towards being disorganized, which was a result of the genes that came from my father. And I believe this tendency was dominant enough that even my parents' well-intentioned efforts to canalize me towards being organized did not work. Maybe that even backfired because of my adolescent emotions and parent-child conflicts. So, in a way, the same environmental factors that worked positively for my brother did not work for me. And this leads me to believe that nature played the most important role on this trait. Environment could only shape it to an extent.