What Makes Me Who I Am

Many different fields throughout history have studied the ongoing question of how we become the person that we are. The question usually lies between whether nature has molded us and whether we have been nurtured in a specific way. For many centuries, the answer has been answered repeatedly. In Newman’s text he says that the structural-functionalists insist that the task of any society is to produce members who’s behaviors, desires, and goals coordinate with those of the society. It’s also important that these conditions are deemed to be appropriate for that specific society.

I want this paper to be towards kids and choice. What makes a person? I say what makes a person is his or her surrounding influences. People that walk by and see me wouldn’t be able to tell that I come from a very low income family, also come from a neighborhood where both my neighbors on my left and my right including the house in front of me were cook house (drug houses). Or that I went to an elementary school where 98% of students are expected to drop out of high and not even make it to college. Most people that know of kids that come from the same background as mine or even worst are known to look down on as thugs or worthless…losers, but with good reason. Because most of the time that’s the outcome.

Talking to people used to make me incredibly nervous and never even wanted to ask questions in class for fear I would sound stupid. Over time the more I spent in school the more people skills came naturally to me. My clubs helped a lot in that regard, making me talk to complete strangers to recruit them. Just conversing with my friends and other kids at school everyday built up my confidence slowly. I started to fall back into my humor, making jokes to get to know someone and getting them to laugh. It's helped me grow into the person I am today, confident and funny.

We often talk about experiences, about how they shape us and help to mold us into the person we are meant to be. Experiences, much like hardships are used as a building block attached with a lesson. What we learn and take from these experiences, hardships and moments are what help us to grow as people.

For most of my life, I always caught between my world and reality. There are times when I can't even tell the difference anymore, it increased over the years with the help of two difficult obstacles, ones encouraging me to seek my future in the ways of art and mechanics. My life of somewhat unfortunate events is what made me who I am today.

Having been homeschooled for the first twelve years of my life, I had a rather untraditional childhood. While my friends were required to go to school from 6:20 in the morning to 3:30 in the afternoon, I was at home studying or on a field trip to a relevant lecture or museum. Incidentally, this less rigid environment also gave me the opportunity to freely explore my own interests. Following my curiosity, I realized that the pursuit of literature was one of the most compel-ling paths I could follow. As a result, I quickly developed a fondness for reading by the age of eight. Alternatively, my desire to read also inspired me to take up writing as a semi-serious hob-by. Despite all my passion, I never took the time to learn any particular writing style besides advanced placement essay format. Instead, I developed my own through imitation and experimentation.

It is an internal struggle that I go through that is not apparent to others. People tend to see me as a confident outgoing individual, and I am, to some extent

What is it that makes us who we are? Is it how we were raised? Is it the specific time and location in space during our birth? Or is it by mere choice alone in every moment that makes us who we are at that moment, ever-changing? I could tell you that they are all are true. And I could also tell you that they are all false. And guess what, both statements would be correct. Here’s another shocker, truth is relative. You can turn something from an untruth into a truth and vise versa all with the power of belief, thought, and faith. If you truly believe with all of your heart that you are a product of your upbringing and nothing more, then you have made that true. You’ve also chosen to be a victim of your past but hey if that’s the truth you want you got it. Now if you believe that your upbringing is the past and nothing more, and that you choose moment by moment who you are, then that is true. Truth is based on your reality. And your reality is based on your thoughts and beliefs. There is no set reality. There are no set truths. Reality, just like truth, is relative to the being who perceives it. Now personally I have chosen not to be a victim of my past for that is all that it is, the past. And the past, just like the future, exists only in our minds. Without your mind, without you remembering the past or dreaming of future possibilities, there is no past and there is no future. There is only NOW. The universe has no concept of past or future. It only

Part of what makes me who I am is the values I uphold. They motivate my every action and underlie my every thought. Values are what make us human and define our philosophies. As I receive my education in nursing, the more I realize how impactful nursing philosophy is. It affects all of my thoughts, actions, and reasons why I do the things I do. Though every nurse is unique and has their own theory of what it means to be a nurse, they all follow a set of values, are influenced by previous nursing theorists and have a commitment to community service, lifelong learning, and being leaders in the professional nursing practice.

It has been said that much about a person’s lifestyle can be predicted just by knowing his or her own culture. With this being said it would make sense as to why my life has always been so unpredictable, seeing that I’ve never known much about my own culture. It’s not so much that I’m unaware of my African American culture, but more in fact that despite being a product of my culture, I could never really relate to or fit in with other members of my own culture. I always seem to feel out of place wherever I go, from classrooms, to my workplace and even at family reunions. I think this deep sense of feeling so out of place stems from my diverse upbringing. As the son of a military family I moved around quite frequently, sometimes changing states every other month and subsequently was consistently required to adapt to different environments & cultures throughout my life. It wasn’t so much the fact of having to adapt to new cultures so frequently that was difficult in fact it was due to this experience that I developed such a diverse personality and became so open to embracing and learning about other cultures. I believe my main issue growing up without a consistent culture or concrete background was that it seemed like I was always being forced to adapt and I always felt like the only one who was different from everyone else, even if I looked similar to everyone else.

‘Pop!’ I opened my lunch box to reveal a lovely, fluffy looking cake. Saliva started to slowly make its way out of my mouth when the sweet smell of chocolate assailed my sense. I couldn’t wait to devour it. All that was left was to sprinkle the icing sugar on now. Eating had become my new addiction after I had got away from drugs. Looking up from my cake I could see my friend running towards me.

The person I am has been shaped by all the people and circumstances I have come across in my life. My background has had one of the biggest impacts on my personality and my future aspirations. Growing up in an Ethiopian-Canadian household gave me a unique perspective on the world around me. My parents emigrated from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in the early 90s. Their firsthand experience living in a developing country provided me with insight into the issues facing the developing world. This sparked my passion for international development. My background has developed my world view, impacted my aspirations, and has shaped me into the person I am today.

Human being is complicated creature, and it is very different from any other animals in the world. What makes I become myself is a combination of all the factor about me. It includes my body, my experience, my knowledge, my thoughts, and it goes on and on. Some of these factors determine who I am while others have little effect of self. In Descartes’ Mediation, he defines himself as a “thinking thing”, which emphasizes the importance of thoughts. There are many other philosophers who have different definition of self. In my opinions, self is first a combination of body and mind; they determine the existence of me. Besides, my every experience fill me in and change me day by day.

My life has been and continue to be nothing but a series of amazing and interesting stories, filled with ups and down as any other normal person experience. What is more special about me is the fact that I have been very instrumental in the remarriage process of my parents who were divorced when I was only nine. Five years later when I turn 14 years I realized that I cannot continue to stay in a single parents house whole under the custody of my father and his mother (my grandmother). Because in a traditional African society, a divorced wife is usually sent back home to her biological parents where she belong. Usually children remain home with their father because that is where they belong, unless they are very young like new born within the age of one month old to 5 years old. I may not know nor was I curious enough to understand the reason behind my parents divorced but I do know this that they still love each other during divorce period due to the conversations I had with both during divorce period. I will often go tell my mother sweet things about my father and will vice versa to my mom and eventually to my surprise and credit, my grandmother just informed me one morning that my mother is scheduled to be back home soon. I could not believe what she was saying. I asked what? She said because she and my father have both realized their mistakes, embraces their differences, apologized to each other and realized that the life and the children they had together and the

I am someone who loves the culture that I came from. I am one hundred percent Lebanese and I wouldn 't change it for the world. Although I was born in the U.S., I wish someday that I could visit Lebanon to learn more about where I came from. Being Lebanese has made me the person that I am today and it has impacted my life greatly.