You are REASON.

I was listening to a song (Soundtrack in the movie "Stranger Than Fiction") that said you are what you do. I found that interesting and for a moment true, but as i thought about it, the truth behind that statement began to fade.

To say we are what we do means that all the actions we take in our lives are just minor phrases or adjectives to define who we really are, meaning that we can never be fully described until the end of our lives. This makes perfect sense, because if you have ever been at a funeral when people come up and give eulogies of the recently deceased, a lot of their actions and achievements come into focus and then you actually see the true goodness or evil of the person thats has passed away.

My problem with that saying is that, many human actions if taken out of context can mean something totally different from what was intended. Take this scenario, Two eight year old boys steals a cupcake from a bakery. Without hesitation it is easy to call them thieves, but if we investigate the reasoning behind their actions we might see things differently. In one case the boy stole the cupcake because he was hungry and has not eaten for days and in the second case he stole the cupcake because he wanted to prove to his friends he was fearless. Knowing the reasoning for these actions would you punish both boys the same way? I wouldn't think so (The same logic is used when someone pleads insanity in court when they killed someone and rather than going to jail they go to a mental health facility) but taking the story out of context puts both boys on the same level and they are seen as the same.

My point here being that if we were to judge both boys and base who they are on their actions alone we would be very wrong, but if we are to understand their reasoning it would help us come closer to how they work, what drives them and who they really are. Hence if we can be judged by our actions it is not what we do that defines us but the way we reason.