Life : One Big ¨ Choose Your Own Adventure

A French philosopher named Henry Burquen once said, 'To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.' A good example of how a person develops his or her maturity is the story of Huck in The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain. In the novel, a young boy from the South travels down the Mississippi River with a runaway slave where they encounter many adventures and meet many different people. Along the way, not only does Huck mature, but he also becomes a kind and loyal person, sometimes going against the values of society. Huck's adventure down the Mississippi River is a passage into manhood because he learns to make decisions on his own as well as gain respect for Jim as a person.

Have you ever noticed how some cars seem to be smiling when you pass them on the road? From around age 7, I always told my mother that cars made by Mazda appeared to be smiling at me! Years later, to my surprise, my mother had purchased a 2011 Mazda 3 for my sixteenth birthday. Shortly after, I pointed out the smiling face that I had always noticed as a child. She finally agreed with me that the car appeared to be smiling due to its oddly shaped grille cover. The human-like faces it makes is not the unique characteristics of my car; it has a unique interior layout, an oddly shaped stain, and a dent in the back bumper from an unforgettable day!

Growing up, no one really knows what to expect from, well, much of anything. We learn from the world around us which isn’t always kind but isn’t exactly evil in the same sense. We choose to perceive the world around us by the way we observe it and the things we are exposed to our life times. Personally, I’ve lived these highs-and-lows quite frequently and never knew when the next thing would give me a fresh look on the life I am living.

I consider the person I am now to be a result of my past, which can be described by the title of a book series written by Lemony Snicket: A Series of Unfortunate Events. Originally, I was born in the disease-infested, poverty-struck city of Saigon, Vietnam. I developed a stone-cold personality in order to cope with my surroundings. Then, I moved to America, but I managed to find myself in an equally ghetto living environment—downtown Lincoln. I was trapped in a new world of violence, drugs, and especially alcohol. And to top everything off, I was put into special education classes due to my lack of English. My disappointment in my life caused me to run away from home frequently, which only made me even angrier in myself. Nobody feels good when they see their mom crying when the police brings you home.

When I was younger, I would often say “I will not be like that when I grow up!” or “When I’m a mom, I will not do that to my kids!” Much of my childhood was spent competing with others for my parent’s attention. They were divorced when I was three years old and constantly in relationships with others, which always took priority over time with me. My sister got pregnant at the age of 15 because she wanted to and that was something that I wanted either. She also battled an addiction to drugs throughout her life that I knew was not for me. With all the bad examples growing up, there were also some good things that I knew I wanted to be a part of me as an adult.

Erik Erikson “proposed a comprehensive developmental theory that included the entire life span” (38). His theory is composed of eight developmental stages that each has their own challenge. Starting from the day we were born all the way up to the day we die, we will have “traveled” through all eight developmental stages or challenges. Erikson’s theory was unlike others in the time period: Erikson believed that development occurs throughout the whole lifespan, not just until age 20 (notes). Similarly, Erikson, like Sigmund Freud “believed that problems of adult life echo unresolved childhood conflicts” (39). For example, if a person does not develop autonomy in early childhood, as an adult, they are likely to be dependent on others. Erikson

“Katelin. This is all a journey. A trip and right now you’re going nowhere. Your destination is getting back to living a normal life. What me and you are going to do is work out how to get there.”

High school is a place where you let go of the past and shape your future. Everything was so foreign to me during the first couple years of high school. Coming from middle school where everything was so easy and all my classes were chosen for me, it was really hard stepping up to the plate and set goals for my life. When I started high school, I was like the “new” boy on the block. It is like Drake’s new album, “More Life,” coming out to the world. However, unlike Drake, I was not popular at all. I wanted to set my priorities straight as soon as possible because I knew it was important in order to have the best education possible before college.

I tried something new. It was almost three years ago. I went to a Dance Academy. It was small but still enough room to dance. I had the choice of tap dancing, ballet, jazz, and hip hop. I chose to do hip hop to dance to.

The first approach in understanding such a peculiar man will be to insert his life into a series of events and match that to Erik Erikson’s Life-Span Developmental process. As it is widely believed, we develop a personality, rather an identity, derived from the eight stages throughout life; that of which molds us into the person that we become (Erickson 1963, 1978).

I'm certain you've heard this statement in your life, “ if you choose the right choice it will lead you to a good path.” Overall nobody's perfect,Just because someone does something wrong doesn't make them a bad person.

Throughout the years my life has changed a lot. I have matured and I have realized that I have more responsibility rather than just taking out the trash. I grew up on a farm with my parents and older sister. Erikson’s theory explains my time since birth until now by the different stages you’ll go through. The five stages Erikson proposed as a lifespan model of development goes through the different stages of life up to the age of eighteen years old and further into adulthood (McLeod, 2008).

Chapter 15 offers positive aspects as well as challenges to growing older (Rice, 2001). While transitioning through this stages the author mentions several important dimensions including social, legal, biological and emotional dimensions which can enhance or causes a degree of instability for the developing adult (Rice, 2001). The author discusses several other models such as Gould’s Phases of Life, Levinson’s Seasons of life, Vaillant’s Adaptation to Life, Normative–Crisis Model, and Timing of Events Model to provide information and different perspectives on the aging process. The chapter closes discusses the change or stability of personality throughout adulthood. The chapter mentions that there are five cluster of personality traits which remains stable through adulthood (Rice,

As time goes on, change is inevitable and changed I have. When I was young, I hated reading, until I read my first chapter book and now I like to read. Also, I used to hate spaghetti, but now I love it. These things happen slowly, and they take some time, but when you don’t do something because you don’t like it or because your scared, try to do it because you will be happy you did. Like the first time I rode a roller coaster, I

Humans are imperfect. The very nature of humans being imperfect is what makes humans who they are. Having said that, because humans are imperfect, we oftentimes make quick judgements on individuals or situations before taking a step back to critically analyze them. I too have made this mistake. As a child, I was beyond happy. I was careless, imaginative, reckless, and truly, completely happy. I was oblivious to the problems that were engulfing my family members and slowly pulling them farther and farther away from me. As I had begun to mature and realized that my papa and mama were not going to be together forever, the world around me slightly faded and was less happy in comparison to how it once was. I no longer viewed the world through the rainbow spectacles I had, but this did not matter because I saw the light at the end of the tunnel.