Who You Are

They say that the choices you make in life define who you are. If you kill, you're a murderer. If you die for a cause, you're a martyr. These are rather crude examples, but they are generally accepted. My question is, what if you loathe the things you've done? Does this saying cease to affect you, or does that happen only once you decide to take action against what you have done to change, to prove that you are not proud of what you have done in the past, and that those actions should not decide peoples' opinion of you. I'd like to believe that, but in my opinion, that's just wishful thinking. People believe what they see, and some only see what they want to see. Sometimes the struggle to change, to be better may seem futile, peoples' past opinions of you withstanding. Do you continue down the path toward self-improvement once you hit that fork in the road, or do you fall into old habits? The point of the struggle is not to be at peace with what others think of you, it's about being at peace with yourself, it's about being proud of who you are.