Creating Yourself

I guess I'm the only one who's never heard this one—"Life isn't about finding yourself, life is about creating yourself." (George Bernard Shaw). While exploring this one, I ran across two others, not entirely related.  I'll tell you how I ran into them, but first, Shaw's idea.
My sense is that "creating yourself" in Shaw's context puts all the possibilities on the table. You set out, not to find something finite or determined, but to create. The dictionary says to create is "to cause to come into being, as something unique that would not naturally evolve or that is not made by ordinary processes." I'm starting to like this create yourself thing. Something "unique" that wouldn't "evolve (or happen) naturally" and is "not made by ordinary processes." It's sounding more like the kind of life I want to live. It is wide open, uniquely my own and extra-ordinary. Where do I sign? Each time I reflect on this creating yourself instead of finding yourself, it makes more sense.
Don't get me wrong. It is a challenge, especially when I catch myself flipping over and starting to change direction or change what I am doing because of what someone else might say or think. A friend of mine calls this act of carrying about "supposed to's" the infernal bugaboo (that's a technical term for an object of obsessive fear or anxiety, infernal bugaboo is probably synonymous with the devil). In short, 'supposed to's" are not good. She pointed it out when I was refraining from doing something because I assumed I was supposed to. This sounds like the opposite of creating yourself, but instead trying to conform oneself to others' imagined expectations. That leads me to the second quote I ran across while looking into George Bernard Shaw's quote. "He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away." (Raymond Hull). If you work at making yourself pleasing to others instead of creating that unique, extra-ordinary self, you may be left with not-very-much.
Something else that occurs to me about creating yourself is the enjoyment it can bring. Enjoying the world is part of that creative process—spending time in nature, hiking, riding, sailing—however you do it—is a beginning of creating oneself, I think. Then look at the act of creating things like essays, stories, books, pictures, paintings, drawings, furniture, etc. That can be another facet of creating yourself. Both facets involve enjoying the world. Still another facet is responding to a calling to serve others or some other cause you espouse to make the world a better place. That brings me to another quote, from my favorite essayist, E. B. White, "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." Good luck on planning yours, I'm going for a walk.