Personal Narrative-Challenging The Norm

At the age of nine, I watched my uncles lowering my father into the ground and what took his life was addiction. All my life I have watched addiction take over the lives of people, I love. My father's side of the family, besides my grandparents, has always faced addiction. Although, addiction runs through my blood, I will not take the same path I have watched people take all my life. I will be the one to end the cycle. Watching the majority of my family waste their life has motivated me to change the direction and better myself from living a life of addiction and misery.

Threads to Which I belong is a book that captivated my soul. As I read through the pages of history, I found myself traveling back in time. Invisible I stood in Mississippi watching a family’s history unfold. As I turned the pages, my emotions changed constantly. I experienced emotions of anger, disgust, sorrow, and happiness. The author has written an outstanding piece of work that forces you to consider researching your own family history.

Growing up with a father in the military, you move around a lot more than you would like to. I was born just east of St. Louis in a city called Shiloh in Illinois. When I was two years old my dad got the assignment to move to Hawaii. We spent seven great years in Hawaii, we had one of the greatest churches I have ever been to name New Hope. New Hope was a lot like Olivet's atmosphere, the people were always friendly and there always something to keep someone busy. I used to dance at church, I did hip-hop and interpretive dance, but you could never tell that from the way I look now.

Her father’s words echoed through her head as one might hear a reverberation throughout the Taj Mahal. Continuous. Chilling. Having no control to distill the wavelengths until they mellowed out on their own accord. She tried to anatomize the depth of his phrase, more than dutifully needed but Davina needed to know why. Why did she need to keep an open mind and more importantly, who the hell was about to come bursting through that door. But then again, did it really matter in the first place. When she thought about it, the brunette could have laughed at the idea. That an unattributed, faceless figure had her panties in a bunch. Surely Dominic wouldn’t think to waste her time with venial diversions,

Of course the norm for me is that of any citizen living in zone three.

The social norm I broke is making too much eye contact, or staring excessively, at my teachers. While sitting in class, I stared at my teachers more than I stared at my paper or looked around the classroom. It is usually normal for students to stare down at their desks and not look at the teacher a lot.

I grew up as one of the hardest things to commit to, black and alternative. My meaning of alternative is being interested in goth fashion and heavy metal music. From what I was told, being black is listening to hip-hop and dressing like everyone else around them or what is the social norm. Clearly, my definition of alterative is contrasting on what it means to be “black.” I say it's hard to commit because coming from a closed black family, I felt pressed to let go of what I felt about myself just to make them happy. Questions like, ‘’Why are you trying so hard to be different?’’ or ‘’Who told you that was okay?’’ Still replay in my head whenever I decide to wear something that I would feel most comfortable in. Not long ago, I got into an arguement

Hi iam Edgardo Flores i was born in casa grande, az not that far away from our state capital,Phoenix, Az.theres nothing better to do in a hot summer than going out with the friends to a lake and have a blast riding jet skis boats and my favorite, swimming!My activites of the day are shooting,riding horses,and my favorite one is quad riding.Thats right! ive been doing these fun exciting hobbies since i was 9 years old.pretty young huh?

They called me an apple. Since I was supposedly red on the outside, but white on the inside, I was automatically a walking bullseye. Being one of the many oppressed Aboriginals, I understand their need to hurt someone else in an effort to release some of their internal pain. I understand why so many give up or turn into raging alcoholics in an effort to numb their pain. Coming from a reservation, my greatest challenge was proving to everyone that all the stereotypes about my people were fallacious. However, the need for a government and an education system that won’t keep on failing us repeatedly is imperative. The only way that I can make my voice heard is to break these stereotypes and to reach a higher education; hence my application for

There I was on the block next to the High Bar. It was about 5:00 at night when my coach told me to do a Kip. As I got up on the bar my nose filled with the smell of chalk. I started to swing, and as I came out of my half turn I looked good. Everything seemed fine but as I came to the part of the Kip where I have to pull my legs up to the bar, I slammed my shins into the bar. My momentum was stopped and I dropped on to the mat, missing the Kip. I felt like I had let down my coach and I had let down myself too. That day I experienced failure. That failure made me want my Kip even more so I worked harder and had support from my teammates.

I personally found trying to find a single “Social Norm” to break challenging so I chose to do two instead. The first was to end my phone calls with I love you, and to talk to a stranger in the bathroom stall next to my own. Which is how I confessed my undying love to a coworker. Working at a casino, employees have to call surveillance for anytime they move around with money or have to be escorted to the vault. I’m a pretty lively person but going into work, I started to get this bashful nature about myself especially the closer it came to performing both of the social norms I gave myself to break.

So many things distract us from knowing and learning to love our soul that we end up neglecting it. For me, it’s the every day that I try to be accepted my society, by trying to fit in the “Normal Box” that society places us all in. I’ve learned no one will fit perfectly inside that box, so why to endure the pain when I can learn more about

Life starts quickly and ends quickly. There is no way to stop the inevitable end that things come to an end and it has to be taught that you have to accept it because no matter how hard you try you can’t change what life has set out for you. Life isn’t all bad, there is a lot of good in it and you have to make the most of it because the time we have to spend is short. One bad part of life is where you lose your innocence due to something you experience, or you’re told something isn’t real that you believed was for your whole life. My innocence was on a steep hill to nothingness when I was eight years old. The slow descent from innocence to losing it happened when one of the closest people in my life had been diagnosed with alzheimer's and

I’ve spent a great deal of my life trying desperately to be different. When I was in elementary school I never listened to the same music as everyone else, I used to pride myself on not following fashion trends, not liking the popular kids, doing whatever I could to make myself seem special and I would make sure to point this out every chance I got. I had to make sure everyone knew I was my own person, special, different. I was doing this from a very young age, which when I got to Jr. High meant that I didn’t actually have many friends. All that time and energy I had put into trying to be different had paid off, but I was sad and alone. “There is nothing sadder than a child who has barely seen the world, yet who has seen enough of it to know

On a weekly basis, I am pushed beyond my comfort zone. Each week brings two new clinical days with new people, situations, and diagnosis. I never know if I will know how to react and do the right thing. Every clinical day I feel a little nervousness because I feel out of my comfort zone. I handle this by recognizing that I do have the tools that I need to succeed. It also comforts me to know that there is a team around me for support. Some days are always better than others, but I have found ease in this by accepting that each day is a learning opportunity. Knowing that my presence that day affects someone's life allows me to appreciate going beyond my comfort zone. From past experience, stepping out of my comfort zone has always benefitted