Every single day there are many decisions that need to be made. Choices that can be as little as wake up time and some that are as big as choosing which college to attend. Most people grow up making decisions based upon their own happiness or because they want to follow in the steps of one of their role models. I didn’t have any role models or someone that I wanted to strive to become. Because I didn't want to base my entire life on someone else’s, I had to learn about what drives a person and what makes someone motivated to do common, everyday tasks. I thought that I was making these everyday choices simply because of my own wants and desires.
As far as I can remember, at the young age of twelve, I started to feel the pressure of having siblings that were involved in a lot of activities and who have accomplished major things in their life. Everyday, I go to school and someone asks me about my siblings or if I’m going to be the next class president, valedictorian, …show more content…
Everywhere I go there is a new set of people that see me as just another overachieving Wanamaker. In the story Black Men in Public Spaces, it talks about how the author would let people categorize him based upon his race and clothing while changing the way he acts so that people do not perceive him as an attacker. The author states that he was “Surprised, dismayed, and embarrassed all at once” (Staples 135). He didn’t want people to mistake himself for a different type of person so he changed the way he did things. Social norms cause for people to conform to what is the usual. I let people make me feel worthless because I didn’t think they wanted to get to know who me and pretend they know who I am. My problem was that I let the opinions of others influence my actions and convinced myself that I had to uphold their labels that were bestowed upon me. I allowed these opinions and categorizations to keep me from moving on and becoming essentially who I
As far as I can remember, at the young age of twelve, I started to feel the pressure of having siblings that were involved in a lot of activities and who have accomplished major things in their life. Everyday, I go to school and someone asks me about my siblings or if I’m going to be the next class president, valedictorian, …show more content…
Everywhere I go there is a new set of people that see me as just another overachieving Wanamaker. In the story Black Men in Public Spaces, it talks about how the author would let people categorize him based upon his race and clothing while changing the way he acts so that people do not perceive him as an attacker. The author states that he was “Surprised, dismayed, and embarrassed all at once” (Staples 135). He didn’t want people to mistake himself for a different type of person so he changed the way he did things. Social norms cause for people to conform to what is the usual. I let people make me feel worthless because I didn’t think they wanted to get to know who me and pretend they know who I am. My problem was that I let the opinions of others influence my actions and convinced myself that I had to uphold their labels that were bestowed upon me. I allowed these opinions and categorizations to keep me from moving on and becoming essentially who I