Many people find issues with identity, especially when it differs from the community that they are in. A lot of times, people will find ways to dodge discussing their personal attributes and interests or even dismissing them altogether. I found my troubles with this spawning in my journey as a freshman in college.

The moment my cleat-laced feet took to the turf for the first time as a college football player, the anxieties within me started stirring. Although I’ve played the sport all my life, and loved strapping up and pounding on the offense, I was so unsure of myself and the new environment around me. Everyone gets nervous freshman year, but the reasons I was nervous were quite different from those of my peers. While others were worried about the elevated intensity and size difference of collegiate players (which I had been bugged out about as well), I feared the ultimate question to be asked: what my decided major was going to be.

Obviously this isn’t a very nerve-wracking question, but at the time I wasn’t sure how my new teammates of skull-crushers and brute footballers would react when I told them I was thoroughly into books and writing. Very soon into the first few workouts, I found myself lying about being an English major, saying things like, “I’m gonna do...business, I think” or “I’m going into professional writing; it’s basically English, but much more prestigious and business-like.” Through these faulty answers, the perception of myself began to fade until one day, like a backbreaking tackle, I was hit with some truth.

For some reason, during the early weeks of school I told one of my teammates that I was an English major. He didn’t stare at me uneasily or tell me how stupid that is like I had thought he would. Instead, he just nodded and said, “Oh man, that’s pretty cool. Could you help read over one of my papers? It’d be a huge help and only take about ten minutes.” Eager that I had finally relinquished the truth about my major and it not being seen as wimpy, I accepted my teammate’s offer and evaluated his paper.

It was an awful paper. But with my proofreading, he received a B+ instead of the subsequent D he would have gotten otherwise. After this, a few others approached me about proofreading papers, and I happily helped. I was finally comfortable talking about my major, and everything in my life was running smoothly in top gear. Football, although difficult work, assisted in tying together some new friends into my life, and I felt myself getting better at the sport on a daily basis. I had never been so sure and confident about something in my life. After diminishing my worries, I could focus in on myself and not what the communities around me were thinking.

Although pronouncing your personal interests and attributes may not be this easy, it's still important for individuals to stand broad-shouldered when it comes to their own personalities. Without our own sense of individuality as well as pride in what we enjoy doing, we risk subsiding the prominent features that make us who we are. If others dismiss the things you enjoy, they should at least find respect within your own sense of pride for who you are. If not, then that isn't a community worth being a part of.