The youth is the period when a person asks the question “Why I am who I am?” oftener than earlier or later in life, and the reason is that the answer to this question allows for determining the goals and perspectives for the future. It is important to answer this question at the stage of choosing a career, a college to enter, and a place to live among other important milestones (Akdeniz and Stark 36; Sedikides and Brewer 12-18; Van der Werff et al. 627). When responding to this question, I should state that I am who I am because of the impact of my family’s values and traditions, social norms and widely accepted moral norms, as well as my vision of education and career.
The first important aspect that predetermined my development as an individual is family values and traditions. My parents and relatives influenced my vision of the world, my approach to treating other people, and my interest in learning and developing myself. In my childhood, I always knew that my relatives love me, my opinion is respected, and my needs are addressed. In this supportive environment, I learned the importance of keeping faith with close people, setting goals, and achieving them. My parents also demonstrated how important it is to be honest, persistent, and motivated.
The second factor that contributed to my personal development is moral norms and principles adopted in the society where I live. In spite of being focused on the values followed in my family, I also interacted with my friends, peers, and educators in a specific environment, and these surroundings also taught and formed my personality. I learned how to communicate with other people with the focus on respect and integrity. I also learned how to be empathetic and sensitive. Furthermore, I became more flexible and tolerant, and I view these qualities as associated with maturity.
The third point that is considered as influential in the context of my development is the accentuated role of education and career in my society. In my childhood, I began to understand that knowledge is one of the individuals’ powers (Friedman and Schustack 87; Reichard et al. 138; Tyler et al. 78). Thus, I started to pay more attention to learning and setting goals for my education. Later, these goals became formed as specific objectives for the career progress. As a result, now I can describe myself as a goal-oriented, self-educated, self-regulated, highly motivated, and skillful person who has a personal development plan for the future.
I should conclude that I am who I am because of a range of factors. Still, it is possible to determine the most influential ones among these aspects. I believe that my care environments and surroundings significantly influenced my vision of myself and goals while leading to the development of a person who is adapted to live in the modern world, who follows moral norms, and who values family traditions.
Letter
Dear Mom and Dad,
I would like to thank you for all your support and help provided throughout my life. Your support is extremely important for me because it is hard to overestimate how critical it is to understand that there are always people who believe in me. You are always ready to listen to me, provide a piece of advice, say something encouraging, and help see the path to follow. When I say that your support is important for me, I mean all kinds of it because your investment in my development is difficult to be measured or valued.
I also wish to thank you for all life lessons I could learn from communicating with you, spending much time together, observing your behaviors and reactions in different situations. I believe that parents can contribute to the development of their children when they act as the best examples for them. Thus, I can state that you were the best role models for me because it is problematic to learn without imitating somebody. Since I could imitate your attitudes to life and behaviors, I could succeed. What is more important is that you taught me how to be a happy person, and this was the best lesson for me. I have learned how to cope with stress and issues that seem to be unresolvable, how to pursue my goals, how to value other people’s opinions and advice, how to not only seem to be independent but also be independent and responsible for one’s actions and decisions.
I also want to thank you for your efforts to make our house the best place to live in. Moreover, you created a wonderful world for me, and I am still sure that our family is the best and friendliest one among all others. I am proud to be your child. It is rather difficult to mention all the points for which I am grateful, and I apologize for that. However, I want you to know that each part of my life is influenced by your example and your energy.
Works Cited
Akdeniz, Can, and Jonas Stark. The Self Improvement Book: A Guide Book for Success and Personal Development. Best Business Books, 2014.
Friedman, Howard S., and Miriam W. Schustack. Personality: Classic Theories and Modern Research. Pearson, 2016.
Reichard, Rebecca J., et al. “Believing Is Becoming: The Role of Leader Developmental Efficacy in Leader Self-Development.” Journal of Leadership & Organizational Studies, vol. 24, no. 2, 2017, pp. 137-156.
Sedikides, Constantine, and Marilynn B. Brewer, editors. Individual Self, Relational Self, Collective Self. Psychology Press, 2015.
Tyler, Tom R., et al., editors. The Psychology of the Social Self. Psychology Press, 2014.
Van der Werff, Ellen, et al. “I Am What I Am, by Looking Past the Present: The Influence of Biospheric Values and Past Behavior on Environmental Self-Identity.” Environment and Behavior, vol. 46, no. 5, 2014, pp. 626-657.