When we emphasise our personality we create problems, because the personal qualities are different for each one of us. We have our common human problems: old age, sickness and death; but there are attitudes, cultural expectations and assumptions wherein we differ, and these are conditioned into the mind after we are born. Because of this, I often say to people, ‘Whatever you think you are, that’s not what you are.’ The personality, the self-consciousness, the fears and the desires of the mind are what they are. In practice, we are not trying to dismiss them or add to them, or make any problems or difficulties around them. We are willing to let them be what they are. They feel this way, they have this quality; they arise and cease. And in that cessation, there’s the realisation of the peace, the bliss and the serenity of just being — and there’s no self in it.
Ajahn Sumedho, True but not right, right but not true
We continually move in and out of wholeness and fragmentation, in and out of clarity and confusion, and in and out of a largeness of heart and smallness of mind. When whole and clear and large of heart, we seem to be carried along, part of something larger. When fragmented and confused and small of mind, we seem to be tossed about, lost in ways we don’t quite understand. And so we continually search for tools that will free us to be lifted by life’s currents and not battered by them. One such tool is a frame of mind, an attitude by which we meet the world: it has to do with whether we are giving attention or getting attention. Giving attention steers us back to center, Giving attention is connective. On the other hand, getting attention is a form of drifting from center. If attention comes your way, well, enjoy, but cultivating and seeking it is paddling away from center. Getting attention is deceptively isolating. It ultimately leads to being seen but not held.
Unless you were raised by wolves, you probably heard at least a few of the following as you were growing up: “Don’t do that…. Why don’t you ever listen?… Wipe that look off your face…. You shouldn’t feel that way…. You should have known better…. You should be ashamed of yourself…. I can’t believe you did that…. It serves you right…. What were you thinking of?… The nurses must have dropped you on your head…. I had great hopes for you…. Don’t talk back to me…. Do as you are told…. Don’t you ever think about anyone else?” Somewhere along the line we conclude there is something wrong with us. What else could we conclude? If there were nothing wrong with us, people would not say those things, would they? 
Since the condition that has caused our dis-ease is a fixed, partial view of our experience, we cannot promote healing just by adopting a different view. It might be a better view, it might be a wonderful view, it might be the greatest view of reality in the world, but it will not be healing if it’s just another set of beliefs and attitudes. Instead of building bigger or fancier boxes, we need to develop the antidote to all our partial views of reality: being present with our experience as it is. We could call it beginner’s mind. This is unconditional presence. As Suzuki Roshi says “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, in the expert’s there are few” We have all become experts at being ourselves, and in so doing we have lost our ability to be present with our experience in a fresh, open-minded way. 
