In what ways choices define us? Given a situation, we can take plenty of time to ponder. But only when we take action based on our decision do we set the course of reality. Which is what everyone around us could see, not the thoughts that lead to it.

Is it easy to make a choice? Sometimes, sometimes not. We make firm decisions about things we are certain about. But what is firm in our mind could change over time, once we get another perspective. And sometimes we can't reach a conclusion at all. Take the example of the trolley problem. I won't put the details here. So the problem is this:

You have to make a decision by pressing a button. If you don't press the button, 5 people will die instantly and if you press it, one other person dies. What will you do? Will you let 5 people die to save one other person or the other way around? And, If now, let's say, to save those 5 people, you have to kill that other person yourself with your own hands, will your first decision still hold? Tricky, isn't it?

But I am more interested in things that we hold firm in your mind to be correct, the ones you stick to, like the axioms of the theory, like a standard model of you.One might say, "But dude, there's nothing that remains constant in me, I used to like that one song so much earlier, but not so much now". Ok, agreed, but I didn't mean something as superficial as a song for being an axiom. The right axiom here would be, your love for music. Does it fade away easily over time? I don't think so. So axioms are more core stuff. It is safe to say all conflicts ultimately boil down to differences in axioms. So, knowing your axioms is a big step towards knowing yourself. To give you an example let's say "Mr. A" has following axioms that guide his thinking:

1. Basic needs: Money to survive and sustain a minimum standard of living. Yeah, food, clothing, and shelter are fundamental but consider money as an exchange chip to get these.

2. Connection: Connection for humans in general, relations with parents, life partners, friends, etc.

3. Dreams: Things that make you wake up in the morning. Things you want to do before you die. Things that you love doing. People are not dreams, just to mention it explicitly.

4. Ethics: Rules most people hold in their heads for something to be good or bad. Your moral code.

So Mr. A holds these axioms dearly and keeps in mind before making an important decision. Please note that unlike physics, axioms here are not statements. A statement will be too strict of a limitation for a fuzzy human mind. So, is that all we need to understand Mr. A? Nope. If you think just having a set of axioms will suffice to explain someone's mind, then think again. These axioms are kind of general for everyone (some might have more or less). It is hard to accept but even these axioms are a function of time. Your meaning of "minimum standard of living" will vary once you attend better standards, so is your love for people. Even your dream might change over time. And we are talking about significant duration of the human life-span.

At this point, you might say, "Dude, what's the point of all of these axioms then?" To really see how these axioms define our decisions we need to add another dimension to it. So, let's rename these axioms to "Axioms[t]" ( it means axioms could vary with time). And we are not programming a robot that needs to be always self-consistent. We have to lose this condition for humans, given how complicated we are. So, our axioms[t] need not stand equally among themselves.

So we ask Mr. A to set in an order of priority for axioms[t]. But he says he can't do it. You can't just arrange these in order, because their order may vary depending upon situations. So given a situation, we select any 2 axioms(t) and ask Mr. A, to choose one. There will always be an example of such situations. And he makes the following choices:

Basic need > Dream: e.g. When Mr. A has no money to eat and he dreams of traveling around the world.

Ethics > Connection: Mr. A finds out that his best friend is a thief.

Ethics > Basic need: e.g. Mr. A is homeless and starving and he sees an unattended store.

Basic need < Connection: Mr. A has a few days of supply but he will still share it with his friends.

Ethics > Dream: Mr. A will not bribe even if his dream is at stake.

Connection > Dream: Mr. A will be with his loved ones instead of going faraway to live his dream alone.

OK, I agree, I could have given better examples. But you got my point, right?

The point is, these choice define "Mr. A", this is what he lives by, and this is how we can know him truly.

In summary, our Standard Model is based on time-varying axioms. Find all of your axioms. It is up to you to track their variation with time. And pre-decide what will we choose between any two of them if a situation arises.

And Voila! You now have a definition of "you".