Personal Narrative: What Shapes Our Identity

What shapes our identity? Who are we? Who will we become? Main question we ask ourselves throughout the courses of our life. I know I have asked myself this a thousand times. Who am I? Many people begin the wonder what shapes our identity and how can we start to identify those traits. Have you ever just looked in the mirror and thought to yourself, why am I like this… These questions come from so many things that happen in our life. Our environment, our friends and most of all the way we were raised. The biggest factor in our identities is the way we were raised. We try so hard to please our parents that we forget how to please ourselves, I think thats called an “identity crisis”. Throughout this essay, I want to touch on a few experiences in my life that got

me to where I am today.

The person that I want to be and is still learning to be. I also, have to remind myself that as humans we are still learning everyday, no matter the age or the experiences. We are never done learning or growing. Which is better to understand that now, then to be dazed and confused with life.

For our whole life we have a routine. That routine is wake up, get dressed, eat breakfast and go to school. And, it repeats everyday. It repeats everyday for 18 years. Then we graduate (thank goodness), just to find out we have to go to school or work, sometimes even both. Then we are stuck in the same routine all over again, just a little bit different. Have you ever heard the term “All work and no play, makes johnny a dull boy”, if so I bet youve experienced this dullness feeling in your life. It normal for most people and for others its darn right depressing. I say this because our environment has a huge impact on who we are, mainly our personalities. In elementry school, I remember myself as being quite shy, the reason for this is because I was picked

on. The older girls would laugh at my hair or my shoes. It truly made me a shut in and I was that way all through middle school. Had barely any friends, because I was known as that shy girl. Now when I was home I was bubbly, funny and also wanting to have a good time. So what happened to that shy girl from 8am to 3pm? Because my school environment made me feel shy, the srudents made me feel shy, but when I was with family they knew how I was. It was almost like I was lving two lives. In the mornings: the shy girl. In the evenings: the fun girl. When I got to highschool all that seemed to change for me, it was a new environment, there were girls who would dress like me or wear their hair the same. I didnt feel so along. I didnt feel like I had to be shy. I was the same person I was at home, at school and I ended up very popular. Not, because I would make fun of people but because I wasnt afraid to talk to people and make friends. Our environment does play big parts. Think about how you are at work and then at home. Youll start to see a huge difference in your personalities.