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In the Oxford Dictionary, a challenge is described as, “A task or situation that tests someone's abilities,” (Oxford Dictionary, n.d.) From the insight provided in this course, I have come to realize that challenges do not necessarily test one’s abilities, but can confront the strength of a group dynamic. This being said, tasks can come up in women’s friendships very easily, and the challenge tests the relationship between one another, and how they will handle it. Throughout this course, I have been referring back and forth with my Challenges to Female Friendship Narrative. I found more ways to view the original scenario, and secondary challenges that may have been present. It has allowed me to learn of the challenges I may have been creating …show more content…
Firstly, I now know that it’s okay to be interested in different things and to want to venture down a new path. There is nothing wrong with being alone in something because if it’s something you enjoy then it shouldn’t matter whatsoever. If I had followed my friend into things she enjoyed instead of things I was interested in, I wouldn’t have grown into who I am now. My empowerment in student council allowed me to receive multiple scholarships and gain the leadership experience that I travel with today. I feel that this was a personal challenge which allowed me to see my own potential. Secondly, I learned that it is okay for change to occur. Once I had created an attachment to my best friend, it was hard for me to understand the small-scale change we were undergoing. This lesson allowed me to make a connection with an article we read called How Friendships Change in Adulthood, written by Julie Beck. Beck discusses the hierarchy of relationships as peoples ages increase, and unfortunately friendships falls towards the bottom. She explains that during adolescence, there’s a lot more self-disclosure and support between friends, but they’re still trying to discover their personal identity. William Rawlins states that the unfortunate part of this is, “In adolescence, people have a really retractable self. They’ll change,” (Beck, 2016). Although Beck also notes that young adults have time to devote to their friends, they’re constantly changing. By growing up and moving onto bigger things, such as grade school to high school, our networks are also growing. This allows for them to experience new things and get to know new people (Beck, 2016). I feel that this is exactly what happened between Makayla and I. Thankfully, now I know that without change, there is no room for new knowledge or adventure. I believe that this allowed my attitude and behaviour to take on a more positive and confident role in
Before my years in high school, I rarely put time and effort into studying and constantly associated with my friends at school; that is until I entered high school. The different competitive atmosphere at high school caused me to suddenly prioritize my studies ahead of everything else and my ambition became greater than ever. I began to interact less with my old friends and become less sociable with those around me. My parents also began to notice this drastic change and encouraged me to once in a while contact my old friends. During the beginning, I contacted my friends about two or three times a week, but the phone calls began to gradually diminish. I began to abandon my previous cheerful, ebullient nature in order to conform to the competitive, tense study environment at high school. As long as I successfully accomplished my goals and was accepted by others, I was willing to alter myself in order to assimilate into the mainstream environment. Through my hard work and perseverance, I was able to reach my goal and receive the acknowledgement of others; however, despite fulfilling all my ambitions, I did not feel any joy or satisfaction within myself. Even though I successfully accomplished my objectives in school, I realized that in return I completely sacrificed my social life. Despite being accepted by others, I began to feel a sense of loneliness and longed to
arose very few women poets; however, Katherine Philips not only became a poet, but she also displayed
Some of my friendship do follow the gender patterns and prescriptions discussed in the reading. I have three female close friends and many guy friends. My three female friends are Asialynn, Liz and Maritza. The type of friendship I have with Asialynn and Liz, follows the typical gender friendship pattern. Our friendship is built on dialogue. We became closer through talking, disclosing personal experience, emotions, fear and our problems. We try to understand one another and be each other’s shoulders. In the reading Janice states that, “one of the worst things about being a female is not having permission to be selfish or jealous or not to care about your friend”. I can relate to Janice comment especially in the friendship I have with Asialynn
Hanging with friends were always different because I only saw them on the weekends, but as a senior, I’m almost with tthem 24/7. Giving up these things were significant because working at a job, school work, and sports were always hard to balance around. But I guess it me a better person and more humble (Cliche). “He was fine during the ascent , but as soon as he started down he lost it mentally and physically. He turned into a real zombie, like he’d used up everything.” (Krakauer 254). This quote stood out to me because with all the “responsibilities” I had were all just so tiring and made me feel like
“It’s not enough to be friendly. You have to be a friend,” R.J.Palacio. Though Summer was the only one to really be a friend to August in the beginning, Jack was friendly and learned that just being friendly was not enough. He needed to be a friend. I started to think about how kids and I would realistically act around August, and I concluded that I would react much like Jack did.
I came into my own by my senior year. I was feminine without fear and felt confidant enough in my friendships to begin to act more like myself. I found myself wanting a boyfriend and acted accordingly: I woke up early to do my makeup perfectly every day and talked in a higher pitched voice. Suddenly, my friendships became potential again. Investments were made, bets were placed. Who would she end up with? Who could win her? I found myself uncomfortably mirroring the girl who I had tried to win over years ago. All niceties were debts due and I had no say in the matter that wouldn’t lead to bitterness or disappointment. My reversed role served an irony that was sickly sweet.
“I just want to be someone, mean something to anyone, I want to be the real ME”, by Charlotte Eriksson. The quest of my journey is to discover my real purpose, my real goal but most importantly, find my real identity. This is known as the “Identity versus Role Confusion Stage” or as described by psychoanalyst Erik H. Erikson, the fifth stage of the Eight Stages of Man. It occurs between the ages of 12 to 18, where every person battles to establish a certain roll or skill that provides one with a sense of a sturdy foundation in the adult society. I too am currently going through this stage of life, dodging many obstacles in order to seek out my identity. The hardest obstacle- my attempt to fit in with my peers, but the extremes I took to find it, may have scared me for life. Nonetheless, it showed me a piece of my real identity and helped me figure out how to grow through it and better myself; it showed me the real me. In the past as well as today’s society, individuality is vital. Each teen wants to create a unique identity for ones’ self, and the start to creating that identity is in high school.
People should not have to stay in friendships they don't want to, but a one time thing is different then all the time. Make sure that you are around people that make you feel good. I had some experience with both of these.
It was a cold October afternoon in 1996, and I raced down the stairs and out the front door, in an attempt to avoid my mother's questions of where I was going, with whom, and when I'd be back. I saw my friend Kolin pull up in his rusted, broken-down gray van, and the side door opened as Mark jumped out and motioned for me to come. I was just about to get in when my mother called from the front doorway. She wanted to talk to me, but I didn't want to talk to her, so I hopped in pretending I hadn't heard her and told Kolin to drive off.
A secret agent. A professional football player. A fire fighter. These would have been my responses when asked that inevitable question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" Family, Media and Peers are said to have influenced my views concerning the role I am to play society. All of these factors had one thing in common. They all were influencing me to behave according to my gender. Everything from the clothes I wore to the toys I played with contributed to this. Even now as a young adult my dreams and aspirations are built around the gender roles that were placed on me.
Role Confusion” occurs during adolescent years. This stage puts focus on achieving a sense of identity in occupation, sex roles, politics, and in other areas. For me, this stage was the harshest and toughest period of my life. I struggled to discover who I am, what I want to do in the future, and what skills I am capable of. I had to somewhat adjust how I perceive my identity and roles to how people around me and my parent’s perceive me. But because what I wanted to do and their expectations were very different, I had a lot of conflict, especially with my parents. At this period, I wanted to gain independence and valued my relationship with friends and spending time with them, but my parents always told me to think about what a “student” should focus on. I knew they respected my decisions and had trust for me, but I could feel the worry whenever they were talking to me. But luckily, as I gained different experiences through school curriculum and constantly found approaches to life, I was able to decide what I really wanted to and what was really important to me. Thus, I believe that these struggles were necessary for me to form a clear sense of who I am and what I have to do. Although this stage was a tough period, I had successfully built a sense of identity in few areas so I was able to have a favorable
In adolescence friendships normally exist within the larger social structure of peer relationships. In this larger social setting each adolescent has a particular role to play and is usually aware of their own status within the group. Close friendships are not independent of such status. Popular or successful youngsters stick together. Those who are 'in' do not mix as frequently with those on the periphery of what is acceptable to the group. Whereas the standards and styles set by the peer group can set highly influential markers around acceptable and unacceptable behaviours for young people, it is in individual friendships that young people find support and security, negotiate their emotional independence, exchange information, put beliefs and feelings into words and develop a new and different perspective of themse...
I was motivated to become the person I aspired to be. I wanted to be unique and I alrweady am. I started watching youtube videos on self-love and charisma. I did a lot of researdch on how to get your friedns to miss you which was not what I needed to be focused on and i came across an article on self-love it talke about living for yourself and becoming self reliant to not wporry about what will satisfy oitehrs this article was eye-opening. I learned about the Law of Attraction on youtube and Charisma from the youtube channels YOuarecreators and Charismaoncommand and I leaarned so much. I have a love of learning. In these videos I was learning exercises that helped me build my condifence they taught me that I deserve to be happy taht I’mm worth it. I isolated myself a lot espeicially with my friedns when we were together hanging out I would wlk off somewhere to think because I would get a lot of anxiety from a strong painful feeling from feeling lonely and unloved. This rubbed of the wrong way on friends but at the time I didnt care. I learned self-love and when I went to NOrthwestern for anacting program that changed my life, people said I changed their lives, that I’m
When I was in high school I had a problem, which was being shy. Being shy made me seem as if I was anti-social, and caused me to have no friends, but my shyness was decreasing each year of high school because I talked more, and by the time I reached 12th grade I had many friends, who are very close to me till this day. While being in high school, I was always focused on my studies. People believed that I was a genius in high school, but I really wasn’t, I was just focus on the lessons, and understood what the teacher taught us. As I reached eleventh grade, I was chosen to be a part of the National Honor Society; I thought that I was never going to be part of the National Honors Society. I was at the hospital when my friends told me the good news—that I was selected to be part of the National Honors Society. As I reached 12th grade I learned that working while going to school is a bad idea if you can’t multitask right. When I was working I didn’t realized that I wasn’t multitasking right; I wasn’t putting enough effort into my studies, and having a job was distracting me, so I decide to quit my job, and continue my education by going to college. Growing up was scary, but I’m ready what the future is holding for
As I reach the seemingly boring age of 19, I am able to look back and reflect on how my choices in the past have gotten me to where I am today. One of the most significant decisions I have made in my life was to minimize my friend group. Now, losing friends is something you hear about before you even hit junior high. The common phrase is repeated over and over again, when referring to high school, “You find out who your real friends are.” As a scrawny little freshman, with no sense of reality, I refused to believe that that phrase would ever apply to my life. The end of my sophomore year is when my then, sixteen-year-old self, realized that that overused phrase was more relevant to my life than I wanted it to be. So I did something about it.