Reflection About My Personal Identity

I will never look at a cubicle office job, a burger-flipping joint, or a salesman’s job and say, “that’s where I want to be in a few years.”. In my lifetime, I have never had an interest in an office job, quite unironically, I’ve always looked to the arts as a potential job source. I love colors, lines, shapes; I find beauty in it all. Art is all around us in this world, and I plan to contribute by becoming an animator. That is my dream job because it’s the ultimate way for me to utilize my creativity. I’ve jumped from multiple dream jobs to the next, at first I considered being a professional “fine arts” artist, working with pencil and any other medium to create classical pieces of work. As times progressed, I’ve slowly realized that the

Once in high school, I put my all into my art. I started exploring different styles and types of art, like design. I applied my skills everywhere: from designing the yearbook for eight years straight to photographing for the Admissions team. I toyed with mediums like acrylic and watercolor as I deviated from the paper I used to use. As time passed, art became who I am: it was what I used to think and feel about the world and I’m compelled to create for

Today being able to identify yourself is such a huge controversy. Are you female or male or transgender? These are all labels to me. Determining who you are is much deeper than physical appearance. It’s who you are not what you are. I am trinity. I am a young aspiring neurologist, and I faced many adversities and obstacles that tried to swayed me from my path of success but instead the wind blew from behind and pushed me to excel faster. This wind I speak of the wind that pushes my wa’a or canoe, and the canoe is my method of transportation to my destination. My destination is my goal or destiny and my support is my paddle. I am my paddle. Every crack of faded spot represents my struggles. The first crack presented itself in 2014 when I was diagnosed with graves disease.

Identity is very significant in one’s life. Every person in this life goes through a phase of self-assessment that involves trying to identify the different elements that compose one’s identity and personality, which can be perceived as an ultimate personal quest to answer the question “who am I?” Many cultures have rituals that provide the foundation for self-development of the individual and provide a pathway that guides the individual to the answers he or she is looking for. Since my birth, I belong to certain Community or Social Groups which can influence my identity and personality. The first was my nationality and family. I have been born in India and I belong to Hindu Culture and Religion group. I had been given my name “Harshit” by my aunt which means “One who gives happiness or Joyful or Happy”. I represent my Identity by showing my group which I belong to and how the group affects my personality. When I came to the United States for my further undergraduate studies, I joined classes, sports clubs and university clubs. These activities were part of my college curriculum. Overall, now I belong to multiple Social Groups such as my family, my classes, Hindu culture and religion, universities clubs, community groups and sports club. Within these groups, I have acquired good knowledge and have completely changed my conduct, how to get involved in social life and how to communicate effectively and fluently in English.

Looking back on my life then, I can see how some of my personal identities play into my missional calling. I am a person that really likes helping and taking care of people. I hate seeing someone in pain or having a hard time. It really plays a role on my emotions, so I always feel the need to help people in need. But I also really like taking care of children. Children are so fun and free. These identities all played into my missional calling to help people and be there for someone who needs support. I think I always wanted to help people growing up because I didn’t know how to help my dad when I was little. And I felt guilty about standing around and ignoring the problem. Right after I graduated from middle school I had the opportunity to volunteer for girls and boys club for the summer. With this program I got to be with children everyday and look after them. I got to take care of them and have fun doing activities that were carefree and life changing. This is when I knew I wanted to work with children when I got older.

Throughout these years I had pursued art as an interest outside of my professional ambitions. Although I knew I had passion for the subject, I was convinced that I had to compromise my creativity in order to have a successful career. It was only in the midst of my crisis, when my favorite teacher decided to pursue opportunities outside of the school, that I realized that I shouldn’t have to play by anyone else’s rule book, especially not my district’s.

As a young child, I knew that I would take an interest in an art related career. I drew on any flat surface I could locate, from blank sheets on paper to the walls of my room. I considered becoming an Art Instructor for a while before I entered high school, where different options opened up and caused me to rethink my future goals.

Many skills that I have learned are being to identify and understand my interpersonal skills and facilitating skills. Through the course I have been able to undergo a shift in my identity as I thought I knew who I was. Yet I come to class asking the same question, who I am, constantly. I think this also has helped me identify what skills are those that I have learned and those that I have made even stronger. Another skill that I have gained to appreciate more is storytelling and the important role and value that it holds. I am able to see that storytelling can be vital to learning about who we are as well as find out out about others in a matter of time. I think that I am getting used to the idea that this in congruence with music and other

I did not take my art seriously when I entered high school. I had been drawing for 13 years of my life, but it never seemed possible that I could use my talents to amount to anything. Then my sophomore year I took introduction to 3d and introduction to 2d art as electives. That year I would meet the teacher that would help me become the artist I am today. Mr. Smith is the art teacher at my school. He took one look at my sketch book and told me I had potential. As the year progressed he told me he wanted me to take AP 2D design with the seniors the next year.

What describes my identity? This is a question I have rarely been asked, and, it has me thinking, because I belong to a lot of groups. We all belong to multiple groups in my case, I am a college student, Christian, music, African American male, caring for my future, love spending time with family, I love traveling, and I live in the United States of America. Although there are more, these are groups that relate to me and generally relate to others. Different events shape my identity such as when black were not liked to different organizations where a lot of African Americans are successful and looked at differently in a good way whether that is sports or music or any other thing that anyone in the world can be successful in. So I believe a lot of event within my culture and organizations that have people in them that we look up to help shape my identity. I understand the focus was one thing that described me or my identity but I believe that one thing does not shape me or who I am. Just like in History there are multiple events that make up History itself because when you think of History you do not think of just one event that happened.

Some years ago I held the belief that I would have been a significantly better draftsman if I had attended one of the Art High Schools in my county. This belief, however naive, allowed me to stagnate in growth and just wallow in self-pity. I figured that it was not my fault that I was not up to par with my peers but rather, what I believed was, the unfair act of allocating all the creative resources to a select elite in these so-called “Art High Schools”. What I didn’t seem to notice, however, was that the skills demonstrated from my peers who attended these institutions did not solely come from them. I failed to see the hard work and dedication that each individual had put into their artwork and developing their skills--figuring that they must have just been given some sort of know-all potion.

“Pay no mind to what other people say; whatever makes an individual happy is what he or she should do.” This quote comes from my grandmother, who tries her best to teach me about an individual’s personal identity. An individual’s identity represents who he or she truly is; it is something that allows a specific person to stand out from the crowd. During an individual’s life, he or she will come across many obstacles that will shape her or his being and will further shape her or him into someone with particular traits, or an identity. During my life, I grew up with six older siblings who each had voices and opinions quite different than mine. Although I felt different from everyone else, there was always one person who I related to, my

Since I was a young’un growing up in rural Southwest Missouri and even now, I've dreamt of learning and even tried my hand at a wide range of trades: guitar, astronomy, teaching elementary school, script writing, piano, teaching high school, advertising, marine biology, acting, owning a restaurant, singing in a country band, and plenty more that my hippocampus decided weren’t necessary to be stored in my long-term memory, and, in fact, may have even repressed, but more on my emotional stunting later. Despite all of these inclinations, there's always been one constant; I've always wanted to create.

John Locke talks about personal identity. In additionally, he also speaks of the survival of conscious after the demise of an individual. Locke also examines the criterion of personal identity though time. The norm specifies insofar. Locke maintains that personal identity is a matter of psychological continuity. Locker vividly considered personal self to be founded under consciousness, instead of substance of the soul or the body.

"If you ever want to learn somebody's background or personality, find out which is their favorite fruit”. This superstition, while seemingly ridiculous, has been a piece of wisdom my mom has lived by her entire life. When my siblings and I were young, she used this “guide to identity” to justify calling us the names of whichever fruits we ate the most. She tried to describe this concept once by explaining that she was a rambutan. While sharing its notoriously long hair, my mom also sees the rambutan as a symbol of her roots and Filipino pride. In my case, I was a grape. At the time, this superstition seemed to be complete nonsense. In addition to having no common background with the North American Vitis labrusca, I must also profess that I look nothing like a bulbous, blue sack of juice that can turn itself into wine. However, with time, I eventually came to realize that my mom’s contrived, unusual metaphor was completely spot-on. In a moment of complete clarity and self-awareness, I first realized that I was a grape in my junior year of high school, when I first participated in the Chinese table of our school’s cultural fair.