Final paper

Lingwa Gao

Eng 3060 J

Final Paper

April 28.201

                                                                   The Growth Story

          It is not always easy to write something about yourself. “Most of people have said that it is many intimate and dear people around us who have been with us for a very long time and probably know more things than ourselves.”(Freudenberger, 1974). However, “there are many people who think that you are your best judge, the most intimate friend or companion and favorite assistant.”(Dimaggio, Giancarlo and et al., 2008). After you have decided to do something that may bring about other’s opposition, no one can alter your mind or change it in another way. This is the meaning or manifestation of personality which defines different and unique human beings. I am sure that it is not unusual that when you are required to make a brief self introduction to others you may encounter with stammer and can’t clearly come up with what to say or write. As a matter of fact, it's not difficult to honestly face your favors, shortcomings, achievements, life and personality. When you do this, the easiest method for you to do so is to write about the facts.

     

          Now I want to talk about myself. To be honest, I am a responsible person. Whenever I have a job to do, I will get the job done quickly. If someone asks me to do a task I will answer with honesty and if it's a must-do I will most likely do it. I am an independent student who can take control of life and sometimes feel like I don't need others to finish my goals. I enjoy being independent because I hold that independence will guide me to find the solution to my problem and I can take my life into my hands. This is what I am now, but in the past days, I just was a totally different one. It is what I have experienced and whom I met that change my life and personality and lead me to walk in a right direction. It’s just like what Eleanor Roosevelt ever said, “I am who I am today because of the choices I made yesterday.” Yesterday was the days you made some significant choices or met some important people. Whatever you experienced yesterday may result in what is happening on you today and leads you to where you are now and whoever you made contact with influence your personality, values even whole life.  

          “Family which is the foundation of our personality and development plays an important role in our lives.”(Field, Sharon and Hoffman, 1999). “It is family that provides us with teachings guiding us throughout our lives.”(Stockdale, 2002). This will shape our values we possess wherever we go. I have a happy family which consist of my parents and younger sister. My parents make all-out efforts to educate us and offer the best living quality for us. In my high school time when my sister was 8 years old, they tried their best to go home on time to share dinner with us no matter how busy they were at work. At table, my father would take delight in sharing family stories with us and we knew that the difference between present life and life in past days (especially days when he spent), how my father spent a difficult time, how he fell in love with my mother and etc. My sister and I quietly would listen to what he said and felt joyful and happy then. However, we are a happy family and have a lot of fun together, but there are also some problems. As a saying goes, every family has a skeleton in the closet. The skeleton in my family is sometimes my parents play favorites. I think my father always likes my sister more than me. When I was a young, parent said to me that because my sister was younger she needed more love and protection. They also kept saying in that you were the oldest child you needed to sacrifice for your sister. Thus, I was often required to do things for her. Every time when we had arguments, I must be the wrong one and I had to admit my mistake and make an apology. At that time I did not understand parents and what I thought was this was unfair to me. Day by day, I became different person than before and I did not even realize it. “Unfortunately, the consequences of parental favoritism are what you might expect - they're mostly bad. Disfavored children experience worse outcomes across the board: more depression, greater aggressiveness, lower self-esteem, and poorer academic performance.”(Sharira, 2009) I was so frustrated that I fought back and I insisted that my parents should be fair. Since then I have become really aggressive and tried to my best to everything. To some degree, that makes me who I am today---a responsible and independent person. I have my stories recording my change to be told.   

Childhood

           When I was 9 years old, my parents said to me they decided to

have a baby so I would never be alone for having a company in my childhood. Before my younger sister was born, I was the apple of eyes of my parents. After her birth, something seemed to change. Everybody including my parents and my grandparents paid attention to her for fear that she may suffer some discomfort. She was the one who always got everything she asked for when I hardly ever did. It was obvious that I was overlooked. I was then a little girl who was always sensitive. When parents focused more attention and love on my sister, on one hand I began to feel they are unfair and on the other hand I decided to make some achievements and behave well to draw their attention. I started to do whatever my parents said. The most important thing for me to do was having a good performance in school. As a matter of fact, I was a good student in school who was a role model for my cousins, but I wanted to be better to satisfy parents and more precisely I studied just for my parents’ compliments rather than self-improvement. I can remember that I obeyed parent’s orders to participate in an extra-curricular class to study math which was not my interest. I dared not to revolt against them because if I had done this I would have let them down. By doing this, I really stood out in my school and I was happy to see that parents were proud of me and gave me a lot of compliments which I considered as bid encouragement for me. Beyond parents’ applauses, every relative said I would be very successful in the future and praised my parents’ perfect education that resulted in my achievements. In this phase of my life, I just was absolutely obedient and I got lost in the journey to search of true self.

Adolescence

            “Adolescence is vital time in a people’s life when her or his body changes from child to adult and the onset sexual maturation occurs.” (Dodge, Kenneth, Gregory, 233). “Changes in hormones leads to the appearance of adolescence and both physical and emotional growth are included in this phase.” (Windel, 1991). Adolescence may create many problems, such as: how to treat the physical changes of bodies, how to deal with the issue of self-consciousness, how to solve the problem of sex role definition and etc. As far as I am concerned, I also experienced a rebellious period. During puberty, I started to question myself. Who was I? What should I do? What really I wanted to be?

What if I did not listen to my parents? What in their mind was only that behaving well in school and having a good performance in exams? For this purpose, I was banned from recreational activities and I had no time to play with my friends. Deep in my heart, I hated their ways of education because I held that all work and no play make jack a dull boy. I did not want to be obedient and do things as required by them. I wanted to be myself, I wanted to make a difference and I deserved to live my unique life. It is usual that a person who is experiencing puberty think in this way. If a person who wants to make a difference and he or she tries his or her best to achieve this goal, it is certain that he or she will become better. To some degree, this kind of thoughts indicates one’s development of independence and maturity, but I headed in the wrong direction. Since then, I wanted to do something unconventional or unorthodox so I skipped classes to play computers or go to clubs and made some bad friends. What I was doing was totally opposite to what I did when I was younger in elementary school. When my parents noticed my change, they just punished me. Actually, I wished that they could sit down and have a conversation with me. Meanwhile, they told what I did was called adolescent rebellion and my sister didn’t learn from me, which poured oil on the flames. Thus I became more rebellious. Looking back now, I think I was totally wrong because parents wanted me to be good and I did not understand them. “When a child goes through adolescence, both the child and parents experience many changes. A serious issue in a child’s adolescence is tension between parents and child.”(Johnson, Eric, et al., 2013). For example, child attempts to become independent and gradually drift from the shelter of home. However, children aren’t able to manage his or her life. Thus, “parents should spend time on bonding with child and child should shape healthy personality under the guidance of parents.” (Reitz, Deković, Meijer, 2006).

Growing up

             “Everyone’s life is a process of growing up.” (Martin, Ellsworth, Lavatelli, and Willbard, 1953). At present, I am far away from home for studying in America. I miss parents’ edification and nagging, I miss the time when my sister revolved around me for listening to my story or asking for snacks, I miss everything that happened at home. I have gradually realized the importance of family and what I did was totally wrong. Beyond that, I know who I really am and what my goal is. However, I did miss some good time to study or enrich my experience. Thus, I should have more steps to build my strength. Now that I come to Ohio University, I keep telling to myself that this is a new start and a foundation of my future. I will learn to become an integrated person who has a healthy body, independent thought, an open mind the ability to judge right and wrong. I will also put my characteristics combined with my competence and interest into my study. By doing this, I think that I can really grow up. This time I want to be a really good person and I will never let my family down. Being in OU,  it really opens my mind. The culture shock makes me focus on the difference between everyone in the world and we need to learn how to understand others.  This picture was my first time to the Fest, it was way too much! But I enjoyed it!  : )

In conclusion, “Life is a search for true self and in this process there is no easy way to get there.” The story of each individual’s body is unique, so everyone can draw lessons from different experiences. “On the road to seek for the true self, everyone must have paid the price.”(Baumeister, 2010). When I constantly explored my way, I always was confronted with many problems but I also gained some unintentional discovery that may help change my outlook on life and values. Everything I experienced and everyone I met may exert an important influence on me and will pave the road to a new self and a new change. I miss the old days because they make me know what I should do and what is right or wrong and I gain many lessons from past days; I treasure my present days to live a happy and simple life because it is they that lay a foundation for my future; and I expect future time because it is touchstone to examine if my change is right. I will always cherish my unique stories which lead to a different self from the past and help create a new life and better self.

I graduate this Spring, I cannot imagine how I am going to miss Athens! But I really miss my beautiful  home as you can see in the photo. 

Yes! I am coming home!

Reference

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Dodge, Kenneth A., and Gregory S. Pettit. "A biopsychosocial model of the development of chronic 

     conduct problems in adolescence." Developmental psychology 39.2 (2003): 349.

Field, Sharon, and Alan Hoffman. "The importance of family involvement for promoting self-    determination in adolescents with autism and other developmental disabilities." Focus on Autism and Other Developmental Disabilities 14.1 (1999): 36-41.

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Martin, William Ellsworth, Celia Stendler Lavatelli, and Willard B. Spalding. Child development:    The process of growing up in society. Harcourt, Brace, 1953.

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Stockdale, Aileen. "Out–migration from rural Scotland: the importance of family and social networks." Sociologia Ruralis 42.1 (2002): 41-64.

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