Advanced Essay #3 What Truly Contributes to Defining our Identity?

Introduction

I had a little bit of a hard time writing this paper. The topic of identity can be really hard to write about due to the fact that it’s so broad of a topic. But after a couple of days of thinking and sorting out my ideas, I finally was able to to come up with a question and a stable structure on how to answer my question. Overall, I’m proud of my work because I wasn’t too confident in this assignment when we first got it. But I think I met all the requirements. I hope you enjoy reading my thoughts.

Essay

What truly contributes to defining our identity?

Society is so consumed in the materialistic aspect of our world. Whether it’s worrying about how many followers/likes they have on Instagram, “needing” to wear the latest fashion, religiously watching the lives of our favorite celebrities, or concerning ourselves with how much money we have/want. We believe that these things make us better, more popular, or bring us happiness. But the problem with this is that all of these material things are only temporary. They only provide temporary happiness; we as a culture strive for things to be permanent because we aren’t satisfied with temporary. In a video called “Celebrities Speak Out On Fame and Materialism”, different celebrities discuss identity and happiness in the fame industry. During an interview with actress, Cameron Diaz, she  states, “If you are looking for fame to define you, then you will never be happy. You will always be searching for happiness.” In today’s society, fame is one of the top goals people would like to achieve. But when they get there it’s like, what else is there to do now that they have everything they could every want? Fame doesn’t bring happiness and define your identity because all the praise is going towards what the person is known for, rather than who they are beyond their talent. Fame is a perfect example of how martialism as a whole shouldn’t define you. The material thing can get uninteresting really quick and it can overshadow who you really are as a person.

Our culture focuses on materialism so much that we begin to slowly forget what truly defines who we are or want to become; and that’s us. Going back to the “Celebrities Speak Out On Fame and Materialism” video, actress/model Cara Delevingne touched on the topic of identity. She says, “The most important journey…..is the journey in ourselves. To find our truth, to find who we are and what makes us happy.” It’s important that people go on this journey because it will separate us from the material world and “force” us to focus on ourselves and what we want to become in  life. This sets up the stage for what should truly define one’s identity. Before one can reach the final destination in the journey of discovering who they are, they must make one pit stop. This pit stop will be most helpful in defining one’s identity. But depending on the person, it can be extensive.

This pit stop is called expanding your horizons. This consist of several other sub-pit stops, but we are going to only focus on a couple. Such as expanding your knowledge, surrounding yourself with the right people, traveling to new places, and taking risk. By expanding your knowledge, you could learn things that can change the way you think for the better.  This can be achieved by reading more books or learning from the experiences of others. Knowledge is power; the more you know, the better you become. By surrounding yourself with the right people, you open yourself to new opinions and ideas that could indeed shape your identity. These people should be uplifting and contribute positively to upbringing of your identity, rather than being negative and influencing you to become someone that you don’t want to be.

This world is so vast and has so much to offer. By traveling to new places, you can start the process of figuring out the role you want to play in the world. Traveling doesn't just mean going to another continent or even across the country; you could also stay close to home and just travel to a part of your city(or state) that’s new to you. Your identity is shaped by your environment; by traveling to new places, you learn about what you can take away from the environment and if you are affected positively or negatively by it. By taking risk in life, you open yourself to endless possibilities that can shape your identity. If you stay in “the safety zone” of life by sticking to what you already know and have done in life, then you won’t become worse or better; you would just stay as you are. But if you take a step into “the risky zone” of life by experiencing new and different things, you may discover things that you never thought you would like, but do. You may also discover things that you never thought you could do, but can. Taking risk can be two sided, you could improve as a person or worsen, but you’ll never know if you don’t try.

The larger idea here is that our identity is defined by the world. Maybe not all of it, but certain aspects of it like culture, religion, politics, or even materialism. By expanding your horizons, you’re opening yourself up to all of the world. Experiencing all it has to offer and seeing what works for you and what doesn’t. No matter what people say defines their identity, all of their ideas are a product of their experience living in the world.

Citations:

"Celebrities Speak Out On Fame & Materialism." YouTube. Ed. Elina St-Onge. "Think For Yourself", 04 Mar. 2016. Web. 15 Jan. 2017.       <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYDKCx4hSQQ>

This is a video, but you didn't list the format we should have for videos on the MLA Style guide. So i just used the website format.