Declaring yourself to be “you,” a fixed entity with consistent patterns, is frequently disproven as we act out of character and contradict ourselves.
We both evolve over time and revert to unexamined desires, periodically engaging in repellent behaviors that reveal traits that are an enigma to our model of self. To wisely incorporate these disparate traits, we graft them onto our current model or understanding of self, generating an increasingly misshapen, unpredictable, and untrustworthy homunculus that, upon examination, needs pruning.
The difficulty lies in remaining open and accepting your oddly chaotic self while moderating these behaviors to reflect your essential core. In essence, we are constantly battling the novel inclusions presented by self-awareness, with the pruning of overly disparate impulsive reactions, struggling between growth and coherence, change and stability.