December 31

KNOW YOURSELF

We see so many versions of ourselves until we truly know who we are. To know who you are, is to know what you’re worth. We often times second guess our value and undermine our own confidence.

I believe I am still learning to find myself. I think I’ll be finding out more things about myself for the rest of my life. I am constantly pushing myself to try new things and stepping out of my comfort zone day by day. I’ve wanted to do many things in my life, for example when I was in elementary I wanted to be a soccer player and an astronaut. Becoming an astronaut was not realistic at the time but it was one of the coolest things to me, at that point I thought that was going to be my identity. I believed that this was me, that I was born to be an astronaut or a soccer player. As my life went on throughout middle school I continued to pursue soccer until I fell out of that phase. That phase where all I wanted to do was play soccer or become a legend had faded out for me. I believe that we go through many different phases in life but we should never get caught up in the moment to the point where we have no foresight and just a lost motive.

The moon, is still the moon, in all of its phases

This quote reflects the idea in individuals who go through different stages and periods in their lives where they are seeking achievements of their goals or simply satisfaction. As did I have created many goals and when I had seen failure I would take it to heart and let it affect my mood. However this isn’t true anymore, I see myself and value my ideals, I’m not trying to follow a path someone already has laid out for me or meet anyone’s expectations, its about me creating my own journey. No matter what the task at hand I do not let others opinions even touch my thoughts because I’ve “beat myself up” about some pretty dumb and minor things looking back now. For example; missing a shot in a soccer game or failing a test. These goals, attitudes, failures, and phases all lead back to your identity and struggles you face every day. Taking risks in the decisions you make show who you really are. They shape your mindset, your personality, and the relationships you keep with people. I keep this in mind everyday of my life because I know I ultimately decide my identity with the choices I make.

Category: Chetan, Sept 2018 | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 12

Effects of Curiosity on my Identity

Times are changing. People are asking more questions. Is it bad that I question values and beliefs of my religious faith? Is it bad that I don’t agree with several practices of my religion? Am I a bad person or worse am I going to hell for my disbelief?! No. I refuse for someone or something to determine my fate based on my loyalty and allegiance towards them.

In today’s time many feel the need to know the answers to everything. As a curious individual who’s faced many obstacles, I feel like religion is something I have grown to disbelieve but I do not deny that it is has and still is playing a large role in shaping my identity.

“Curiosity”

Since childhood, I was surrounded by my religion, Shia Ismaili Muslims (we call ourselves Ismaili for short). My parents and grandparents all deeply entrenched in our religious roots. I too, once, was deeply in love with the divine: I would attend my mosque and pray alongside my dad and after have the opportunity to run around with my friends, playing hide-and-seek and soccer every chance we had until it was time to go home. Even after moving to Calgary and making new friends, I continued to pray no matter what situation I was in, whether it be if I really wanted something or just to remember my creator to feel safe or forgive any sins. Yet, for some reason, this was not satisfying for me.

As I grew older and started learning about events from the past or even current events taking place all over the world, I asked the same questions as any another curious individual would ask about God, “why is He doing this. Why all this blood-shed and inhumanity.” Asking these questions led me back to the same answer that not only people told me but I told myself, “He has a plan. Everything happens for a reason.” After facing specific family problems and using anger as a means to insult my religion, I grew into the mindset of wishing to never be an Ismaili Muslim. I refused to be associated with my religion and blamed my failures on God. I stopped praying and removed all pictures from my room of anything that was related to my religion. Although this anger led my life for a while, I made sure I kept it a secret from anyone because I was afraid of judgement and letting my parents down.

Moving into my junior year in high school, I began to mature and understand that things like academic success and consequences all came as a result of my actions and the amount of work I was willing to put in. I always struggled finding myself thinking that I was an outlaw, a rebel who was not going to succeed in life because I did not believe in religion. I began to understand what religion did to me, how it influenced me. I realized that all these years I was blaming religion for my failures and problems but I never took a step back to realize how religion made me a better person in society. Attending years of religious classes and learning about my faith implemented values and ethics in me. I slowly started to value religion again but not like most would. I saw religion as more of a foundation system for me, in that, all my decision making skills between right and wrong and how to treat others all came from the ethics I was taught from religion. From this, I no longer saw myself as an outlaw but rather someone who knew how to be a positive member in society and someone who was going to be accepted by everyone because of the kind, caring person religion taught me to be.

Throughout my life I have struggled with my sense of identity but I finally feel like I am growing into my shoes and understanding who I truly am. I still refuse someone or something to determine my fate but I do bow down them (if there is a greater being) for helping to shape my identity and making me the person I am today.

 

Category: Sept 2018, Uncategorized, Zaafir | LEAVE A COMMENT
December 8

My Identity

 

The definition of identity is knowing who someone truly is, where their values, beliefs, and priorities truly lay. I think that individuals have different journeys to embark upon, their own destinies to live and their own unique legacies to leave behind them. I still grow and learn more about myself as I grow and blossom into the hopefully well established, strong, and independent women I aspire to be. My belief is that an individuals identity is a reflection of the environment they choose to put themselves in. My greatest struggle to discover my path to my identity has been to embrace the fact that I have to live my life for myself, not other people. My greatest struggle has always been consuming myself with other peoples concerns rather than focusing on my own life, over time I found that I was deterring away from the path that I wanted to be on. I have always known what I wanted to do with my life and who I wanted to be and that’s been the biggest blessing for me but getting distracted along the way caused me to lose direction. I had to experience great failure to come to the realization that I need to be more individualistic in order to find my path. An individuals journey to identity will consist of many hardships, I think that learning from our mistakes is what teaches us to build our identity around our experiences. In many cases, we must fail in order to succeed. Sometimes some individuals have longer journeys than others but that doesn’t mean that the will never find it, each downfall will shape them and teach them a lesson to carry through life. But the most important thing will always perseverance without there is no way an individual will see any change in their lives. Identity is a complex thing but that also the beauty of it because its what will make one individual unique and special. I strongly feel that our environment as we grow has the biggest impact on our identity, each and everything an individual experiences as they grow to adulthood sticks with that individual forever and that’s why it is important for individuals to know that your bad experiences do not always have to install fear within you they should be an opportunity for you to learn about who you are. All these little lessons eventually compile up and become a very important part of an individual.

An identity would seem to be arrived at by the way in which a person faces and uses his or her experience

~James A Baldwin

Category: Sept 2018, Shanza | 1 Comment on My Identity
December 5

My Identity

The greatest challenge in life is discovering who you are. The second greatest is being happy with what you find. An insecure girl will stir up trouble because she has to be the winner. I was always the trouble maker as a little kids and nothing no matter how hard people tried changed that. Then one day it’s like a switched flipped. One day i could feel my faith coming through me and try to steer me on the right path. I am coming to terns with the fact that loving someone requires a leap of faith and that a soft landing is never guaranteed. Don’t let struggle become your identity let faith. When you can feel good about yourself, it carries over into everyday life. If you can look in the mirror and like yourself, that’s the greatest feeling in the world. I feel more like myself than i have in  long time. Before I truly comfortable with my identity i was struggling with major health and mental health issues. I have 2 different anxiety disorders and 6 health issues. This has been a struggle fir most of my life. However my faith has really helped me get past all of my struggles and help me define who I really am. The weaker we feel the harder we lean on faith. And the harder we lean the stronger we grow. At the end of the day, I’m at peace because my intentions are good and my heart is pure. In family life, love is the oil that eases the friction, the cement that binds closer together, and the music that brings harmony. My identity is unique from anyone else’s there is one me and I don’t want to match Anyone else’s identity.

 

Category: Felicity, Uncategorized | 2 Comments on My Identity
December 4

My Identity

Throughout peoples lives, many of them have struggled to come to a realization of who they really are. They keep trying to find themselves but they fail every time. Many people go through this and you might not be able to see this from the outside but they are broken inside.

 

When I began grade 12, I didn’t know what I was going to do when I was done high school. I had a hard time deciding on what I wanted to do and was seeking help from many of my close friends and family. All my friends had their lives planned out and I was the only one who wasn’t sure how my life would turn out.

When mid November came, I knew I needed to make up my mind fast so I wrote down everything I was interested in and started thinking. Soon after, I had set my future in a way that would benefit me and was finally able to see what I was going to become. I came to the conclusion that I wanted to become a police officer because I wanted to put bad guys away and help the community grow and become better. Being a police officer was always my dream since I was a child and making that dream come true would mean a lot.

I found who I really was and finally had a sigh of relief because all the stress had finally been gone. In an individuals life, finding their future self can be hard because the future is unplanned for and there are many things that can go wrong and alter what you had intended to happen. Facing and overcoming these obstacles is a big part of finding your true self and can help you get through life with a little less stress. I hope whoever is reading this has found a way to find their true self and accomplish their goal in order to achieve success.

Category: Harman | 1 Comment on My Identity
December 3

My Identity

Identity

         At my age I don’t know what my true identity is and I feel like when your life is all said and done then others truly realize what you meant to the world and what your identity is. As a kid in high school I start to think about what i’m going to do in the future but until it happens I will never be sure about what’s going to happen in my life. I want to be a lawyer but when I get older and gain more wisdom I will realize what I want to become and when I die that will be a part of me. Most of my cousins are becoming lawyers and that’s why I chose to pursue that and sometimes I think to myself that being a lawyer is not truly who I am but there’s money in it. I’ve always loved electronics and because of it I feel my true identity is to become a software engineer. At school we are always told to do what you love and that will make you happy and I somewhat agree with that because if you’re doing something you love and it’s paying you a good amount then I say pursue it but if you’re poor and doing something you love then I feel you will have much more problems in life and it’ll make you depressed. In my case I find interest in being a lawyer and it pays good so it would be a great choice for me but becoming a software engineer is risky because it might not work out so I think that pursuing it would be a waste of time if it doesn’t work out well for me.

“Nobody truly knows or appreciates you until it’s all said and done” ~Anonymous

What this means is that when you’re alive you’re just another human but when you’re dead then everyone realizes how much impact you had on their life and that’s why many people mourn over others death. There’s many examples of this such as rappers because when they are alive people just listen to their music and never look into what they are going through but when they die they post all over social media and start appreciating them. The reason people do this is because everyone is afraid of death and when someone else goes through it they want to show their condolences to their families and show that the person that has passed was important.

Image result for success pictures

The Psychological Mindset for Success

        What this picture means to me is that you don’t realize your highest point in life until you’re dead and that’s why the man on the top is a shadow. The reason I think this is because your life can change instantly without even see it coming such as winning a lottery or getting framed for a murder. You know it happened but you wouldn’t see it coming. Things like this change what people think of you and eventually changes your identity because the experiences you have in life shape who you are as you grow older.

 

Category: Robin, Sept 2018 | 1 Comment on My Identity
December 3

My Identity

https://pixabay.com/en/woman-face-identity-self-me-i-am-510480/

Who Am I?

I believe that is a hard question to answer at my age, I feel that I have not experienced enough to truly answer that.

When are we satisfied with who we are?

A persons identity is based on factors such as life experiences, family, and religion. It can be hard to accept who you are, especially when your identity clashes with the people around you. This is something I have struggled with in my life. Growing up, I wanted to be so much like the people around me, that I changed myself until I couldn’t even recognize who I was. I built a persona in order to please those who were supposed to love me, for me. I lost sense of who I truly was, and acted like a stranger to those who knew the real me. This is the reality for kids who are growing up and trying to figure out who they truly are, and what makes them unique. Unfortunately, sometimes they abandon their divergent qualities, in order to fit in with whats “cool,” which is damaging to such impressionable minds. That is something I struggled with in middle school, the constant need to be like everyone else, being different was frightening, due to the fear of judgement and rejection from my peers. I disregarded my own feelings, in order to fit in.

“Be Yourself,” but is it really that easy? Especially in today’s society, when being different is not always valued.

Growing up, I was strangely attached to the idea of fitting in/being popular, therefore, I tried my hardest to be similar to those around me. I changed the way I looked, acted, and even thought. I was persuaded into participating in situations that I didn’t feel comfortable in. This is the result of trying to please everyone. You give and you give until there is nothing left of you anymore, and you are just a hollow shell of someone you used to be. Of course the relationships with those kind of people never last, so it is up to you to scavenge what is left of who you were. My relationships with certain people have altered my interests, goals, and and at times. my virtues. An example of this would be how, growing up, I hated sports, and was more of a “girly-girl,” but my friends, loved to play, therefore, I dedicated lot’s of time to join teams, and go to practice for something that didn’t even excite me. I believed strongly in being kind and welcoming to others, and as cliche as it sounds, “not judging books by their covers,” but when my friends asked me to behave unkindly, I could not refuse, and that is something I regret.

Now, I’ve realized that I need to live my life as who I am, and based on my rules. I have  a strong sense of identity, and that is being a positive and happy person, who spreads love, not hate, and does not judge others before knowing who they really are. You get what you give. I should not have to compromise my identity in order to be loved. If I am not being loved for who I am, then that is not love, and I will not find inner happiness.

Category: Sept 2018, Zainab | 2 Comments on My Identity
December 3

My Sense Of Identity

A person’s identity is something that is made of multiple components consisting of an individual’s dislikes, like, and beliefs which could also change over time. But we often choose to hide our identity as they represent who we are, which makes us unique from others and as a result we hide it because we want to fit in with our peers. This can be seen through my life as I had to hide my identity which I developed during my experimentation with new activities that turned into a hobby which was Airsoft.  One of reasons I hid my identity was that my mom disapproved  of this identity I developed as she hated the risks that came with it such as getting injured, or heading down the wrong path, and she would do anything to stop me from perusing it even if it is threatening me to sell my gear if I continued down this path. But that was not one of the main reasons I had hidden my identity, I hid my identity because of my peers and the constant amount of teasing and harassment I get from it, as all I wanted to was to fit in.

Throughout time, I Started to develop a stronger desire to not only open up to others, but to show people my whole identity, as just telling people the part of my identity that will help me fit in just does not feel right, because I am covering up a big portion of my identity which made me who I am, a competitive, determined, and kind individual which I developed from the Airsoft community I join. At some point, I got over the obstacle of hiding my identity, because why hide the key factor that helped me develop multiple identities in me that I never knew I had. As a result I started to actively embrace it by not only sharing the part of my identity that help me fit in with others, but also sharing the identity I hid, because from the fear that I may be rejected due to that identity being uncommon with my peers and the negative experience I had with sharing it.

And to this day I am proud of the identity I developed as an individual because the part of the identity that I hid away in the past has helped me develop identities that I never knew I had, which would help also help me in the future. Even if others do not like that part of my identity, I will not hide or change it because I am the one that gets to determine what my identity is.

 

“Never forget what you are, for surely the world will not. Make it your strength. Then it can never be your weakness. Armour yourself in it, and it will never be used to hurt you.”
― George R.R. Martin, A Game of Thrones

Category: Eddie | 1 Comment on My Sense Of Identity
December 3

Who am I?

 

http://www.voicesofyouth.org/assets/59b512c77664b-full_cropped.jpeg

I feel like I have established a solid identity now but it hasn’t always been so. Seeking an identity was a problem for me when I was younger. Growing up, I never felt as if I needed to fit in. I always used to ride my own wave, going along with the flow. I felt amazing.

 

I started to realize a shift in middle school when I started grade five with older cousins in grade eight. I began realizing that everyone was expecting me to act a certain way; knowing I was related to my cousins. It didn’t bother me much at all at first but I slowly started to develop a fear of how people started to perceive me. Teachers, older students and even some of my own friends started to act strangely. It wasn’t till then I fully understood the situation; people were expecting me to be rowdy due to the reputation my cousins had.

I saw myself slowly change my habits and work ethics. I succumbed to societal expectations and became a new person. I began to drop certain aspects that made me unique, like my desire to learn new things or the passion I have toward my education. I began to slack around during many of my classes. I saw myself become someone I didn’t like.

I finally chose to change my habits and become myself once again in grade ten. I surprised many people as some had not seen this side of me before. I changed from a kid who would take nothing less than an “A” to a person who would laugh and get fifty percent in class. I avoided putting work into anything. I started to create this bad image which I was unable to change from all due to becoming vulnerable to people’s opinion of me. I didn’t understand the importance of being unique and being yourself. Your life isn’t based on what others think of you, it’s all about what you think about yourself.

It was a hard process to change myself back into my old habits, but I now see myself returning to my old self. I’ve noticed that I have started to redevelop old passions like astronomy.

My journey to establish my identity was not easy. Seeing myself become a pompous individual was the hardest thing I have experienced; not being able to do anything about it at first made it twice as bad. I learned that when a vulnerable individual is faced with societal expectations, they tend to succumb to the pressures imposed onto them, altering their beliefs and values.

 

 

 

 

Category: Rohit, Sept 2018 | 3 Comments on Who am I?
December 3

My Sense of Identity

My sense of identity was not solid until about grade 9 because in grade 9 I became more confident being myself and to tying to be what others wanted me to be. It became more clear in that grade because I found a friend group that I fit in with at that time an now they are the people I hang out with most. They were with me through the good and bad, and I know that I can always count on them when I need them the most. When I was in  junior high I was not very secure and I was hanging out with the wrong group of friends that would always get me in to problems and I almost got suspended for one week because of them so after that I stopped hanging out with those people. There was a point in my life where I had to reflect on who i need in my life, and who will always be there for me. I was searching for those people who I could rely on, and know that they will be there for me, in present and times, as well as in the future. I need people who I can trust, as well as friends who are loyal. There were some people who I thought that I could trust but in the end I found out that I could not trust them and they were not loyal, so I left them behind and moved on to new friends.

I had no issue with my background and I know where my parents are from. My mom is form India and my dad is from Kenya.

Image result for indian flagImage result for kenya flag

I haven’t been to ether place yet but I would love to visit both and learn more about where my parents are from and experience the way people there live and society and social life works there. I am already comfortable with my background but I would like to visit the country’s so I can become even more comfortable with my background. Now that I am in high school I am more comfortable in many aspects of my identity like my group of friends and the people who I fit in with.

Category: Aly, Sept 2018, Uncategorized | 2 Comments on My Sense of Identity