To continue with what I was just saying: I'm pretty sure my parents wanted me to "be" somebody who reflected credit on them. They'd set out to teach me some principle such as "Don't be lazy." Demonstrating that principle was good, and even insects that demonstrated it (bees, ants) were valuable because they were such good examples for the rest of us. If I could do something well in an hour, that wasn't as good as doing the same job not quite so well in four hours -- the second way showed I was more industrious.

(Later, when those same industrious ants started invading my mom's kitchen, she didn't seem to think quite so highly of them -- but that's another story. )
I used to look for "role models" all the time -- notice someone whose actions, style or even appearance I admired and try to follow or copy their example. I used negative role models a lot, too: I wanted to be sure never to be (or look, or sound) anything like _____ because _____ turned me off (triggered me?! ) in some way, so obviously they had to be turning off everyone else the same way. It eventually started to occur to me that (a.) everyone I disliked and didn't want to be like, many others seemed to like just fine, and (b.) none of the people I admired the most seemed to have gotten whatever way they were by copying someone else.