Definition Overload

“You gotta remember who and whose you are,” my mother told me one fine spring morning. I was eleven and  in the sixth grade. It was the day that I had to present my English paper in front of the class. Boy, was I nervous. There was not a trace of confidence in my body. I had expressed this to my mom, and she immediately gave me a hug and told me that it would be alright, and that in order to first have confidence you must first have to think highly about yourself and even remember how highly God thinks of you. Little did I know how much that one little saying - that one piece of motherly advice, and with a little help of prayer and an extra boost of self-esteem, my life would be changed forever.


Ever since that moment  I never went back. I became confident, spunky, and outgoing. I had established the definition of my identity, and it stuck with me wherever I went.  Through that phrase, and through my own belief that I was God’s child, royalty and that I was Kimberly Danielle Barnes. Although this was the main place in which my defining of my identity was established ,there were other things over the years that I learned defined my identity.  The comfortability and happiness that I would later  get from friends and certain  people around me, my hobbies and other things I enjoyed, and things I participated in, would all help to not only define but to find myself.


The way by which we define ourselves, are often times not our own. The definition of identity, is often times influenced by how others around us feel  and the power by which we allow them to have. It may come from the what and desire from someone else, or what we visualize ourselves being. Our first thoughts of ourselves, however is the first establishment of it. After first defining ourselves, we then allow for it to be adjusted and refined based on what we surround ourselves with. Although the definition by which I defined my  identity was found at the time at age eleven, there were still many things, I later encountered that I allowed to have a larger impact on my overall definition. This is why identity is as fragile package, one thought, view, or opinion can either make it or break it. It is constantly changing, and sensitive to change. This is why there are so many identity adjustments we encounter. Our definitions are not constant.



In Flowers for Algernon, a man defines his identity through his ability to obtain intelligent, The smarter he becomes, the more confidence he finds within himself. However, his definition of his identity came more from based off of what others felt about and towards him. He found his intelligence and was able to determine it through the many tests he took, that would allow for him to see how smart he was. His results were given back to him, by the people who were working with him to make him smart. He could not properly spell his words, making him impaired and because of the knowledge he saw easily grasped by others around him he desired to be smart as they were. He emphasizes his desire for intelligence so that he will fit more in touch with his identity. “Miss Kinnian says  maybe they can make me smart. I want to be smart.” Charlie’s definition of his identity was not complete, because of the lack of knowledge he realized he lacked. His want to be smart, would help him to complete that. His trust in Ms. Kinnian “making him smart” came from the understanding that she herself was on the level of intelligence that he wanted for himself. After months of testing and observations, he at one point reached the level of intelligence he wanted. He illustrates the change he felt not only internally but externally. “I'd hidden the picture of the old Charlie Gordon from myself because now that I was intelligent it was something that had to be pushed out of my  mind. But today in looking at that boy, for the first time I saw what I had been. “ The transition from “mentally impaired” to intelligent changed Charlie in ways he had never imagined. He finally felt confident in himself and the way he viewed himself, because of this. He now saw a man confident enough to be seen by others and now felt renewed a change in his identity. The “old Charlie Gordon” was the man he hid away, not confident and comfortable enough to show. This in turn made him uncomfortable in the definition of himself, and he quickly forgot who he used to be with the new man he had become. This is often what happens, when the definition of ourselves, stems from negativity and not things by which we find happiness and are comfortable in. However, when the way by which we define our identity stems from things that make us feel good, positive things they are easier to remember. This is why we need be careful, the things by which we let influence us and define us.


In What it Means to be a Women in Society, a woman's definition of identity came from the outside sources from around her. The beliefs that society had about women and what it meant to be one. So much so, that she herself could not really determine what it meant to be a women, without it being the actual definition of a women, influenced and established by society. She states the feelings she had upon coming to terms with herself and what it meant to be a women. “Nothing came out. How could I articulate what made me a woman without making it sound like my definition was THE definition of woman?” The author, was so used to this definition that she at first didn’t even know how to define what made a woman a woman. This happens so often, where we are so trained to think about what society has to say or societal views, that we don’t allow our own selves to do the thinking. We feed off of societal definitions, therefore not having an idea of what certain things mean ourselves. She allowed for her definition of identity to be defined by society’s overall definition. If i was defining what it meant to be a GIRL or what a GIRL was I would say myself, being me. Then I would go into my own opinions, based off of myself and how I feel. I would say a feminine female, but that is just my definition, some girls are tom-boyish or prefer sports over shopping. So, I believe that allowing our own definition of what it means to be something or a certain someone should come straight from both our opinions and also our experience and even our own lifestyles. Her definition was fully reliant on society’s opinion, this is why she had no other official definition of her own self.


We must be careful the ways in which we allow things to define us. Each one having its own impact, either positive or negative on our lives. The more positive the better, and stronger our identities become, the more negative the more unstable and fragile we allow for the impact to have on ourselves.




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