Who Am I free essay sample

I’ve always been someone else. I could be that concealed, dark-haired insecure teenager or I could be the queen of the world. I could be the world’s happiest sunlight or the CIA’s most wanted criminal. But what I always struggled to be, was myself. If I could pinpoint the day I wanted to be anyone but myself, it would have to be the September morning I changed schools. As I entered a world completely different from the one I always knew, private school, the dingy desks and obvious hand-me-down school supplies of public school compelled my sudden epiphany. I could be the person I never was because I was no longer labeled the poor girl that everyone’s eyes skipped over. In fact, people were already staring at me. It started as little lies that could never hurt, â€Å"I have way more jewelry at home,† and â€Å"I met the producer of that song, it was my friend’s Dad!† But is that not how all bad habits start? As soon as I couldn’t deliver on the lies I made, I made new ones to cover. We will write a custom essay sample on Who Am I? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I couldn’t be the person I wanted to be, so I pretended. As they say, â€Å"Fake it ‘till you make it†. But every day I didn’t change, I resented my real self more and more. Eventually it all became too much. My family never knew what happened, in fact no one really knows. This is the first time I have really admitted it or written out the words. Although no one knew, my parents realized I needed help and sent me to therapy. I worked on myself for a while and I would like to think that I was the one to fix my own ideals. I realize that I not only was the source of my own downfall and hatred but I also realized I was the key to my happiness. I would like to think that with college I can learn to accomplish and become proud of the person I have become. I created my own identity crisis and I don’t feel sorry for the walls I put up for myself: they have helped in ways nothing else can. Although I feel I am so far from solving all my problems or becoming what I always wanted to be, I believe this is the direction I need to take to figure out who I really am. For someone who has always hated herself for just be her, I hope to finally find out who I am and how I can prove I’m really not all that bad. Who Am I free essay sample It’s a late night in October and a little girl, about seven, is sitting on her bed in tears. Her father is nowhere to be found. She trembles at every little sound she hears, a creek in the floors, the wind blowing in, everything is keeping her up. That night she realized it was time to grow up. No more nights would be spent in fear and tears. That little girl sitting in her bed crying was me when I was seven years old. At a young age my mom left, leaving all the work to my dad who could barely take care of himself. That’s the last night I let myself be weak. As I look back at the events in my life I wonder if I would have become the same person I am now without those events. The struggles I have faced made me a strong and independent woman. We will write a custom essay sample on Who Am I? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Each experience had important issues that made me learn how to deal with anything life would throw at me. Nobody denies being a child is a time of laughter and play time, but not for this girl. During my young years, I was stuck doing all sorts of chores and having the stress of taking care of my family on my shoulders. At the young age of two my mother left me along with my five year old brother and my dad. At the time I wouldn’t have know what was going on but I soon realized my life would not be the same. Play time was over by the time I was about seven years old. My dad was working two or three shifts in a row so I had to take it upon myself to grow up. The nights that I would sit awake in my bed I could hear my dad crying. â€Å"Why me God? What did I do to deserve this? I need some help some guidance please! I can’t do this alone!† I never understood what my dad had done wrong and why he was asking for help. All I knew was that I couldn’t let him do it alone. Instead of playing with my Barbie dolls, I was doing laundry and cooking dinner. I never thought I would have to grow up so fast but it was the only option I had. I could hear my dad asking for help but with most stories help would not come. My daddy needed me, so I said goodbye childhood, and hello adult world. With the passage of time, money became even tighter in my little household. Just buying groceries was a challenge. Having to pay for school, clothes, and any bills made my dad worry if he could really keep doing this. Since my sophomore year of high school I have been getting very sick and the sickness would last for a long time. I walked into register for senior year with the fear that I wouldn’t be able to attend because my dad was just swamped with bills. It’s embarrassing to say but this year for the second time in my life, my dad had to file for bankruptcy. Having that talk with my dad was very hard to handle. â€Å"Lauren things are going to be pretty tight for the rest of this year; I won’t be able to buy anything for about 3 more weeks.† He said. â€Å"Dad what’s going on, I don’t understand, where is all our money going, why can’t you afford to buy me food. I can’t eat ramen noodles anymore!† I cried. â€Å"Lauren I know it’s hard to understand and hard for me to talk about but I am filing for bankruptcy so all my bills will get caught up and we will have no worry about all the late fees I’d usually have to pay.† He replied. The last time my dad was so far in debt was when I was seven, leaving me to grow up. Well that toll has hit me once again. All summer long I searched for a job and I finally got one at Old Navy. I deal with the everyday stress my dad deals with such as paying for food and the mortgage but also with school, dance, and a job of my own. I am like no other teenager my age. I am seventeen years old and I have to pay for my own food. The biggest wake up call for my father was when I was sent to the hospital because I had lost so much weight that I fainted in class. Life is never easy for anyone but it seems as if the world is trying to challenge how much strength I really have. Tragically life is unpredictable, sometimes you get handed gold but other times you are handed a shovel and told to get back to work. I have worked very hard and have taken all heart breaking details of my life with a smile. I am a strong and independent woman who will never regret the life she was given. I have gone through hell my entire life and now it’s the worst. I have learned that I am a strong woman and there is nothing in this world that I cannot do. If I have to work in order to pay for my own food then I will do just that. I will work as hard as possible in school in hope of writing my own ticket to college. Though I was forced to grow up I’ve learned many things that teenagers never have to face until they are in their late twenty’s early thirty’s. I am unlike any other teenager you will meet. I will never take a hardship as a failure. Anything that life has thrown at me shows how strong and independent I have become. Without those events I would never had experienced tough times and learned how to deal with them. I am thankful for all I have and all I’ve worked for. If I didn’t have to work so hard for it I’m sure it wouldn’t mean so much. I have grown into a strong and independent young woman that one day will show the world that nothing will ever hold her back. Who Am I free essay sample Throughout my entire life I’ve been posed with the same question: who am I? It seems that as the years go on, the question becomes harder and harder to answer. As a child it was plain and simple, as all childish things are. I am Becky and I am four years old and I like ice cream, was the typical run-on reply I would make. Due to the innocence of a child, the world always appears to be black and white, wrong or right, good and evil. Then, in my adolescent years, the questions’ answer became more clouded. I am Becky, I would state, and I am whomever you wish me to be. Everyone goes through that stage of suppression, where who you are is self-conscience of how you will be perceived. Nobody wants to feel excluded or alone, so to be safe we are â€Å"easy going† so as to make friends with whoever we see fit. We will write a custom essay sample on Who Am I? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Finally, there is where I am now. Nearing the end of my high school career and on the verge of emerging into adulthood, and only at the age of seventeen. It always puzzled me as to why teenagers who finish high school are supposed to suddenly take on the roles of adults. After eighteen years of being sheltered, they are finally on their own and thrown into the world to fend for themselves. It may not be as barbaric as that sounds, but it is essentially the same idea. So, on the verge of this dramatic change I once again beg the question: who am I? Well, I am eager to learn, adventurous, caring, and funny, but I am also so much more! I am fire, I am wind, I am the sun, I am a dog, I am a button. I have a fiery passion for everything I do. I am as blissful as the wind, but also strong when I need to be. I am always striving to be positive, because I know when there is one grey cloud it seems the sky is filled with them. I am as loyal as a dog and as tenacious as one too, I am not one to give up easily on something. I am a driving force who, like a button, always keeps things together. Whether it be my relationships or events in my life, I keep myself together because wherever there is a problem, there is always a solution. I am Becky and I am a puzzle. There are a million pieces, each of them unique, but when you put them all together it makes the image complete. Who Am I free essay sample I like reading The Economist and watching I love the 80s. I like tennis, Fazolis breadsticks and writing assignments. I value honesty, commitment, scholarship and kindness. These are hard and true facts, but there is a lot I do not know about myself. I dont know how I feel about the death penalty, I have mixed feelings about religion, and I dont know what I think about a cashless society. I have no stock answer to offer about a life-changing experience or a moment of enlightenment, and it is hard for me to give a comprehensive proclamation of who I am, for my identity unfolds more every day as my experiences grow. Since I am only 17 years old, life has a lot of unfolding to do. I dislike saying I am trying to find myself because my identity is not lost, it just needs more uncovering. Luckily for me, what I love to do and want to be helps me uncover more about myself. We will write a custom essay sample on Who Am I? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I want to be a writer. I may not end up a professional writer but I will always write, even if I am the only one interested in my work, because writing is my self-reflection. When writing, I sometimes get worked up into such a fervor that I barely know what I am saying. I just let my fingers fly over the keyboard and the ideas pour from my head. When I go back through the jumble of unpunctuated ideas, I notice a theme running through the writing. I dont try to put a moral in the theme, but invariably it happens. Evaluating the theme and the rest of the writing helps me interpret my own character and decipher my at times bottled-up feelings. In opinion essays, my values show. In stories, the fictional characters express my beliefs. Every day my experience and knowledge increase, and I learn more about myself. Each time I write what is in my head as honestly as I can, another piece of the identity puzzle is revealed. Mostly, I like what is unearthed (though this varies depending on how teenage girl-ish Im feeling). I am not worried that I dont know everything about myself. As I get older, Ill figure it out. Who Am I free essay sample Identity.While we grow and develop, we tend to go through many unimaginable situations in order to see what we are really capable of. Along the way we as individuals also go through multiple phases all in the name of defining our own â€Å"Identity†. I find this as one of the most fragile, crucial, and noteworthy moments of our lives. I, as a Muslim American have always found â€Å"identity† to be one of the most significant challenges I have ever faced while growing up as a Muslim young girl in a Western society. I always felt â€Å"out of place† due to living in New York City with an at home culture that resembles the everyday culture of Pakistan, which I must add is unquestionably unique than how people live in Western societies. Establishing a Muslim identity has always been nearly impossible, the media has always kept this mindset that a practicing Muslim cannot be an American at the same time. We will write a custom essay sample on Who Am I? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page I began to change my morals into the theory of believing that a person can’t be a practicing Muslim and American due to the immense gap of differences. The issue of displacement I felt throughout my life let on an obligation to neglect my spiritual beliefs in order to feel satisfied by materialism and the desires of an average teenage girl. I was around the age five when I was fallen into depths of confusion and oppression that I never knew would go against who I am as a person in the future. I came across many childish jokes while being in elementary school and middle school that gave me urges to demonstrate that I am not â€Å"oppressed† nor a â€Å"terrorist†. My mother always told me â€Å"fight evil with good and you will always find peace.†What she told me till this day is hooked on to me. In the spring 2011 after returning from my trip from Pakistan I had noticed how Muslim women have advanced vastly than what the media has portrayed of them. Since then I had made the devotion to start wearing the Hijab, despite of all the names I was called and stereotypes other Muslims in western societies faced. I had decided to start wearing the headscarf to firstly prove it is a choice and the form of identity I was long searching for. In the beginning semester of attending my new high school of my sophomore year, I wore my light purple hijab with tassels at the edges and felt pride. Of course, students did look at me as if I was out of my mind or thought I was going through a identity crisis but that was not the case at all. My associates approached me and asked; â€Å"You didn’t wear that on your head last year, why now?!† †Did your parents force you to wear it?† I answered them composedly without any fear of what kind of words they might attack me with and simply said,† I stumbled upon it during the journey on defining who I am.† They might have stroke a puzzled face, however, I never felt so comp lete. Who Am I free essay sample Who am I? Am I the teen who peruses dictionaries or the marketer who thrives on competition? Am I the athlete or the idealist? Do I enjoy the frothy sitcom or the heavy novel? Do I rise to the challenge or from my ashes? Am I the introvert who fails others expectations or the extrovert who breaks others barriers? Well, at one time or another I have been all of these and, because of that, I emerged stronger. Not only have I emerged stronger but also wiser. My life has been a constant molding and sculpting of my identity, a mirrored sculpture in the works. One day I can be the successful student who  ­readies himself for the world and another I can be the struggling workman who finds that no amount of preparation can solve his problems. During those times, I am a different person. But my failures do not imply defeat and my triumphs do not imply the end. We will write a custom essay sample on Who Am I? or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page This year I realized I was not good enough to make the soccer team. After playing my passion for over 11 years, I had to give it up. I slouched as I departed from my final practice and pictured my name being slashed from the roster. I felt as though I had not only let myself down, but also my family who had cheered me on for over a decade, and my teammates who always lifted me during my lowest of lows. But my failure did not imply utter defeat. Instead of mourning, I found a silver lining. Other endeavors – including work and studies – washed over my regret and cleansed my mind of failure. I now look forward to working and studying more for personal success. But as always, this is not the end. I have grown wiser from my failure at soccer but where do I take this newfound wisdom? Do I take my hardscrabble pay and invest in the future or do I take my hard-earned grades and invest in my studies? Do I take a risk and go for gold or do I play it safe and go home with a story untold? There are always at least two roads to take in life, and my decisions leave me with another chisel mark in my sculpture. An athlete, a marketer, an idealist, a quagmire, an introvert, an extrovert, the funny guy, the serious persuader, the other guy. At one time or another I have been all of these and, because of that, I am me. So does my unfinished masterpiece fit into your hall of academia?