“Who are you?” It seems like an easy question to answer, but if I told you to really give it some thought and give me a deep answer on who you are, most likely after you gave it some thought you’d agree that it’s not as easy of a question to answer than it sounds. Even for me, when I was asked that question, I got stuck, and then we were told that we were going to do a whole project going over the questions like “who are you” and “What kind of person do you want to be?” I thought that this project would be a cakewalk and I would be able to do all the work without ever really needing to think about it. But then we watched (Michelle Obama who are you gonna be?). And I realized how important and impactful these kinds of questions really are and especially just how difficult they would be to answer.

So how’d I figure out who I want to be?
There are two things I did to figure out what kind of person I want to be. First, I read Chris Hadfield’s “An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth” because Chris Hadfield seemed like a cool wise guy, and then after that, I interviewed my Grampa because he has always been a major role model in my life, and I’ve always wanted to know how I could be more like him. Both of my resources really helped me learn some things about how I wanted to live my life. One of the things that the book helped teach me was to be resilient and to never give up on my dreams no matter how far away they might seem. One of the things that my Grampa taught me was that sometimes it’s just easier to agree with someone and move on even if you don’t agree with them; it’s just not worth wasting your energy. If someone asked me for my advice on how to figure out who they want to be, I would definitely recommend learning from various role models or people you think are cool. Now, after reading Chris Hadfield’s book, I would definitely say that he went from being someone who I just thought was cool to being one of my role models along with people like my Grampa. Unfortunately, I can’t link to my Grampa, but I totally recommend the book so if you want to read the book I read here’s the link to go buy it (An Astronaut’s Guide To Life On Earth)

Who do I want to be?
You might be asking after all that work to figure out what kind of person I aspire to be, what did I actually end up with, well here’s my list. I want to be someone that people come to if they need help with something no matter what it is. I want to be trustworthy. I want to be kind. I want to continue to be grateful for people who help me. I want to not take things for granted. I want to be funny. I want to be healthy. I want to be athletic. I want to be a student who is good enough at math to not have to worry. I want to help people in return for nothing. I want to be able to cook some good food. I want to play some kind of instrument. I want to be someone people don’t feel pressure around. I want to be happy. I want to be someone people think is fun to hang out with. But I think the most important to me is that when I die I want to be thought of as a good man. But these aren’t just things that happen overnight, these are things that could take years to be, but on the plus side at least I’ll have some goals pushing me to improve for as long as I’m around.

Sticky notes?

We did a couple of activities that I really enjoyed with the goal of self-improvement over the course of the project but I won’t talk about all of them, just my favorite. My favorite was the gratitude sticky notes that we did over the course of the entire project. We would be given a sticky note, then we would write down something that we were grateful for whether that be a person, place, or thing. The sticky notes aided in implementing a hopefully long-lasting positive mindset and general outlook on life and to be completely honest I think they did that. My friend Tom and I really enjoyed doing these because it feels good to be grateful and appreciate other people for what they do it got to the point where we would go up and remind the teacher if she forgot about the notes. I think writing down what I’m grateful for might just start to be a part of my everyday life because by the end of the project I definitely think that I felt happier than I did at the start.

Who am I right now then?
I think the question “who am I “ is a bit harder to answer than the question “who do you want to be” because at least to me it feels a bit awkward and strange to talk about myself. It could just be harder to answer to the same degree as the previous question because I honestly don’t know who I am yet though. No matter how hard I try, I can’t come up with good answers I’m happy with. That’s not to say that I’m not happy with who I am, but more I just don’t know how to describe myself. I can definitely say some things like, I am a son or I am a student but it really doesn’t seem to get more complex than that unfortunately. There was an activity that we did where we had to make a stick man that was meant to represent us and we would write those kinds of who am I statements around it but I didn’t really write much other than those obvious statements but I honestly think that’s okay because “I am” still growing so I think as long as I know who I want to be I should be fine.

Thanks for reading I hope you have a good day or evening.