Who are we?

I regularly come across conversations where people wish things were different in their life, or they wish something in their past was different or had not happened. Which is understandable, bad stuff happens. But the thing is, we are the sum of the events of our life, and life is itself a journey of self discovery. Know the phrase "It's not the destination, its the journey that matters." Well that applies to life. Since nobody gets out alive. The destination in this case is death, the end. Now, I'm not going to delve into an afterlife topic, but for now we'll go with the fact that life is about discovering who we as a person, are. Are we just a bag of skin holding various squishy and actually quite unpleasant internal organs with functions controlled by an electrically powered synapse brain connection forming a sense of consciousness and self-awareness? Or are we a person with various hobbies, friends, thoughtful interactions, theories, and an attempt at self-betterment?
Putting aside that there are quite a number of people don't actually strive for self-betterment and only mope in self-misery and destruction, life is about finding out who you are, as well as deciding who you are and who you want to be. Aiming at what you want to achieve, what kind of person you want to emulate or meet the standards of, who you feel comfortable being, and ultimately, being happy in your own identity and figuring out who on Earth you are.
Some people don't get there for many years, and some get into a comfortable zone of contentment in knowing who they are. A phrase I've found myself thinking cheerfully for the past year is "I am me. I like being me."
Because for me, life is good. I'm rarely bored, and I have personal standards I try to meet, and generally think I do. So that puts me as happy with my identity.
However, I wouldn't be me and know what I know or act in situations the way I have had I not experienced various parts of my life. Family togetherness or lack thereof is an important part of the nurture process when someone is growing up, and can do a lot to shape their identity. However it is not always a given whether it will be a negative or positive effect, due to the nature of the person themselves, they may feel vindictive towards the world at how unfair their life is, or they may strive to do better and prove that they are better than their elders and set a good example for the next generation, should they have one.

Ultimately, the meaning of life can even be brought into this by the simple explanation that it is in fact about a journey of self-discovery. Every event shapes you be it big or small, and people learn things every day. I'm an Atheist, and I have a horrible suspicion (and suprisingly pessimistic for me) that what we have is what we've got. That we are just a bunch of incomprehensibly complicated synapses interacting with each other in a jelly-like noodle to form consciousness, and that when we die and it powers down, that's it. We're like a computer turned off. The hard drive will eventually fade away, and our legacy is what we left behind.
I'd love to believe I can spend eternity in a place of eternal glee and fluffyness with the woman I love, but.. I find it a little hard to believe. I will believe however, there is more in this world than what we see, and we shouldn't take our available spectrum of visibility for granted. But it may be the case that we are simply here as a result of evolution, and that looking for the meaning to existence can pretty much be answered like so.
"Why are we here?"
~Shrug~ "Why not?"
There's no argument against why we should be here.
But whatever the case, I strongly recommending taking each day as it comes and making the most of it, and best of all, leave something good in the world behind you. Don't hoard riches, you can't take it with you, but you can give it to those in need. Love trustingly and love openly, and maybe someone will love you back, and maybe, just maybe, it'll spread a bit more good in the world, because bloody hell there's far too much corruption and greed and evil than there should be. We are our own worst enemy. Because no other species on the planet has wars and commits genocide.

But, I'm going to stop there. It's gone into ramble mode and I've simply written down my thoughts as they've gone along. I hope you've managed to follow my train of thought, and if not, I hope it inspired a train of your own to ponder on. Goodnight.

Silver.