Who am I? At one point in your life, surely you have asked yourself this question. During your childhood, you merely discover and map out the world around you. During your adolescent and teen years, you begin to see that the world you know is far greater than you first imagined and that the possibilities are endless.

One possibility to consider is to discover who you are, what purpose you have in this life, and to learn how to live out that purpose in the most authentic way. You begin with a foundation; morality. You learn right from wrong as well as when to apply said morals for your own benefit. You soon learn what interests you within the world. Sports, video games, fashion, pop culture, music, over time you learn what really piques your personal interests and soon start to develop knowledge and understanding of these interests in order to become more proficient in the arenas. With a developed proficiency, you gain a better appreciation for these interests, and soon it may even cultivate into a loving passion. As you slowly mold your being, you eventually discover things that you may dislike or perhaps may not really have an affinity towards. Maybe you’re not into sports or perhaps you don’t really have that much of an interest in the entertainment world. Maybe there are certain perspectives that really don’t seem appealing to you and you prefer your own logical viewpoint, hopefully while retaining the tolerance and respect of other perspectives.

More and more time passes, and you acknowledge the existence of certain habits and quirks you possess. Your personal character becomes clear to you and you try to discover how it fits into the world around you. You then come across not only the positive personal traits of your being but also the negative ones and it becomes a constant battle to diminish the latter. But for what reason? Why reject these negative traits if they are a part of who you are? And more importantly, who deems them as “negative”. Is it you? Or is it the society you’re enveloped in that deems it negative and if so, do we abide by their standards. The answer isn’t always black and white; I know it wasn’t for me growing up.

I spent most of my life trying to understand who I really am. It proved to be difficult when I found myself different from a lot of people. Different ways of thinking, different interests from my peers, not really living by the stereotypical label of a young African American male in today’s society. Many times I would try to express my “true self”, and as a result, I would be misunderstood and ostracized by my peers and the reservations grew in order to adapt, in order to grow, in order to survive.

Eventually, as I grew older, I was fortunate enough to run across individuals who respected my uniqueness and grew to treasure it as I became a part of their world whether it was a friend, an acquaintance, or a bond much deeper. The reservations soon began to give way and I was able to act more like my true self, rather than be restricted to certain actions and behaviors. Once I put my foot down to make a name for myself, I slowly started to realize who I truly was; the good and the bad. I learned of my strengths and I acknowledged my faults. A tough thing for me has always been to discern my strengths and my weaknesses. Is it a strength to care as much as I do about others despite the emotional tolls I’ve had to endure as a result, or is it a mere weakness that is draining me and will become my eventual downfall? Is it a bad thing to want something at the expense of someone else not receiving that thing, or is it the natural concept of competition that drives humanity and deems such desire acceptable? If I don’t act on what I desire, am I restricting my true being? Or on the contrary, is such restriction necessary in order to prevent catastrophe? I often ask myself these questions as I walk the world.

But through trial and error, I do know this much. I possess a heart that allows for empathy towards those it connects to. I possess a mind that is open to the perspectives of others and contains the tolerance and respect of said perspectives should they not cause an endangerment towards my existence. I have my own personal desires and can be selfish and I shouldn’t hide this but embrace it for it is who I am. I am reserved by nature and it takes a great deal of effort every day to be unreserved and extroverted although it may not seem so from the outside looking in. There are things I love and there are things I hate, bottom line. I could go on and on about who I am but isn’t that the beauty of getting to know a person?

As I continue to grow, there are still things I am learning about myself and who I really am. With what I do know, I carry and personify it with confidence and courage. As we constantly question ourselves, our being if you will, we soon discover the true essence of our being. And with such discovery, it requires us to take a step forward towards the masses, to stick out your chest in defiance of being restricted to the expectations of our society, and to acknowledge and appreciate everything about us that makes us who we are. To understand, acknowledge, and appreciate you, the real you.