Personal Narrative: Who I Am

Who am I? This question asked so often suggests that there is actually a reasonable answer. Almost as if our own personal being were a fixed thing. Generally, people who ask this type of question are usually struggling with their identity and thus are looking for something to make sense of themselves. The irony is that the more you seek to identify who you are, the more you are exposed to being fragile. Some people spend their live looking for an answer that could possibly satisfy them but still never find anything. The main focus shouldn't be on discovering who you are but on considering the social influences that have affected you.

I think I speak for many people when I say high school is a critical point in one’s life. Coming into high school, things seemed to be tightly-knitted between my peers and I; those of us who had just

I was still finding out who I was then, even now I’m not done changing, but I’m not who I once was, I’m not sad all of the time, I have a very small group of friends and I have changed for the better. My high school experience has been very interesting so far. Having few friends in life leads you to finding an alternative; I read of adventures and friendships, I learned the meaning of love and what it means to care about someone, I put myself in the shoes of those I read about. It’s helped me to become independent and more

High school, for many, is commonly termed as “the greatest four years of your life.” It is stopping for coffee with your friends while listening to your favorite songs on the way to school in the morning. It is staring at the clock waiting for the bell to ring to finally go to your favorite class of the day. It is staying after a long day of class for meetings, clubs, or sports, or it is spending Friday nights with your best friends performing under the football field lights. High school can be many different experiences for different people, but most importantly, for me, it was learning essential values of life while shaping me into the person that I am today.

There are many ways One’s identity can be defined. Only you can truly define who you are. You control what your experiences and influences make of you. When asked who am I, there could be millions of different answers depending on what you base your identity off of. To me, the question who am I, can only truly be answered in one way. So, who am I? For me, it’s an easy question. I’ve always known that I was the quiet girl In the back of the classroom by herself.

Throughout highschool I have grown as a person. Three words I would use to describe myself as would be friendly, caring, and positive. My mom has always taught me to include everyone in everything. This is the main reason why I am so friendly. Whenever I see someone sitting alone at lunch, or even walking to class alone, I am the type of person to go up to them and talk to them to make sure they know they are always welcomed to join me. Two things I try to accomplish everyday are telling everyone good morning and giving everyone at least one complement. I love doing this because you never know when someone can be having a bad day and the one compliment you give them can change their whole day around. I would also say

High School culture has changed since the “old days.” Students from all grades are not only striving for academic success, but also participate in many extracurricular activities as outside forces continue to impact social life. With this comes the typical struggles of students figuring out who they are, and what kind of person they want to become as college becomes a daunting factor.

Now, almost a decade later I have learnt what is really important to me. It is important to step back and listen to yourself instead of looking at others. Today, with a bigger distance to my highschool years I can see what was happening to me and why I acted the way I did. I was fantasising about who I could become to be loved and acknowledged by the people around me. I thought defining myself would make me feel more secure about myself. Looking around me I can see the phenomenon of the search for identity almost everywhere.

I entered high school as a little ,scared and skinny freshman. Now it is my senior year and I am still little and skinny but I changed. I am not going to be cliche and say "High School is where I found who I truly was." Actually, what I have done defined my character and reflected my true passions in life.

As time passes and deadlines approach, a certain question seemed to constantly come to mind, “who am i?”. I never took the time to ask myself this question, but as my senior year slowly comes to an end, and the time to plan out my future is here, the question arose. It's difficult to find time to ask myself this question, and even more difficult to find the answer with so many other things circling my mind, especially around this time in the year. But in order to get to where I am now, I had to get to know myself first.

As you continue to go through each grade, it becomes harder to distinguish yourself from those around you as you are ushered through the cookie cutter of life in order to excel in the world hoping to be prepared for experiences that you may face.Through college, one is presented with the opportunity to reinvent themselves and really discover who they are. I hope to take advantage of this newfound freedom in order to develop who I am as a person as I prepare my self for the obstacles that I will soon face. I believe this step in life will help me break out of my metaphorical cocoon to become more comfortable with who I started out as and who I will become.

In high school everyone expects you to find out who you want to be before you graduate, some of us do and some of us do not. Teachers, counselors, administrators, your own family will tell you that what you do with your four years of high school will define you who you are and who you will become in the future.  I may not know who I might become but I have spent the past three and half years doing something I am passionate about. Being a part of the Junior Reserve Officer Training Corps has transformed my way of life. It has given me a part of my identity I never knew I had. Being able to have the confidence, leadership, and the ability to communicate with others gave me a sense of purpose.

When students have positive affect, they can “activate mental schemas, make meaningful associations, consolidate their long-term memories, become more creative and flexible during problem solving, take more risks…display more prosocial behaviors” (Isen, 1999). At the end of each class period for the entirety of the schoolyear, students will hand in a reflection paper explaining how their individual biases either changed or stayed the same regarding the current events used for the day, as well as how they feel about what they are learning. They will also include in their reflections how confronting cognitive conflict in discussions and group work has affected their schemas, current beliefs, values, and goals, and how it has altered their sense of competency. Indeed, students who have not yet reached a sufficient metacognitive level will struggle with these types of tasks. If this is the case, one-on-one

Currently, as a junior, I feel that the past three of high school have tremendously shaped my character. Arriving at the doorsteps of Manatee High School, I knew little of leadership, or service. To me, high school was and still is a journey. I've learned to give back to those who have helped me. Through various extracurricular activities, I've not only learned to be a team member, but a leader as well.

While childhood seemed like a breeze, my adolescent years were anything but that. Adolescence, the transition between childhood and adulthood beginning with puberty, is a time full of physical and psychological changes both positive and negative. During this time individuals are in search of their identity, a task that can yield a lot of confusion. The question of who am I lingers in the back of adolescent minds and the answer anything but simple. This struggle for an identity and one’s place in society can lead to stress. Through exploration and soul searching, however, one might find their identity. For me, this question seemed impossible to answer, however, I always had a strong desire to fit in and be liked by others. Reading through the different developmental theories in the text, I started to compare them to events in my own life and noticed many significant similarities.