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It's tautological to grasp for what makes any one of us "essentially" ourselves. Sure, Nature (big N) plays a role in our individuality, but Nurture is far more quantifiable, given sufficient definition.
We are all products of our environment; upend your environment and you will have changed just what you have become. It's largely why I think people harbour the 'people don't really change' notion: people often settle for this or for that, in one place and for significant portions of their lives struggle to maintain a sort of homeostatic existence amid their relative liquidity to the status quo. Obviously this is reinforced as people age- it's nearly a biological inevitability- and the platitudes of youth gestate such a fear of the senescent and inert, we likewise manufacture an existentialism derived from the impossible perception of the impending moment we will no longer be who we are now. But it's just as useless a phobia as a wish if you die 5 miles from where you were born.
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There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your philosophy.
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