Who Are You?

Who are you? Imagine you were asked to create a profile based on any of these three characteristics about yourself:
• Your religion

• Your personality

• Your future or current career choice

You might answer Christian, friendly, media. Easy questions to answer, right? But have you ever though deeper than these simple answers?

Your religion may be anything; Christianity, Hinduism, Islamism, Sikhism, or even Atheist. There are so many. What if I asked you, When did you become a Muslim? Most people would say Since I was born. or Ever since I can remember. Usually there is only one answer to why you follow the religion you do; your parents. They teach you right from the start to believe in the same religion as they were taught to believe in. Nowadays there are people who say they follow a certain religion but they don’t really believe in all of it. I like to call these people the Indecisives. I certainly am an Indecisive. Why? Because you tell yourself your whole life that you follow a religion, but then one day you realize that you don’t really know enough about it or believe in what you do know about it. That’s when you do some soul searching, and then make a decision of whether or not you follow that religion. It may end up that you don’t follow any religion, or you change religions because of the style of beliefs of another, or even a slight belief in a mixture of religions. You might be afraid to change your mind because of family or because of your current religion. You might think My parents will be angry with meor even God will be angry with me for disobeying Him, even though you're already doubting Him. But remember that it’s you that believes (or doesn’t believe). You’ll still have that urge to search the world for others who have similar beliefs. There are so many people who can influence your belief, but in the end, it’s all on you.

What do you do when you have a bad morning? Two answers. A. Suck it up and fake a smile at school or work. B. Ruin everybody else’s day. The majority of people go for the first answer, but sometimes it’s just too hard to pretend. Why do people go for the first answer? Because they know that others will question them or feel bad. Who’s the influence again? Other people. You might even act like somebody you’re not because you want to stay within your current “friend” circle. Well, guess what? There’s always another group of friends who will accept you for who you really want to be because they’re like you to. You just won’t know until you let yourself out. You can never adapt to being someone you’re not. One day, you’ll just get tired of that voice inside your head telling you to shut up and stop acting. It’s really not that hard to be yourself.

Think ten years from now, if you’re in school. If you’re not in school, think back to when you were. You’ve got a dream in mind. You want to go out and be, for example, an architect. But your parents want you to be a doctor and take over their office. All you think is damn. Flush away your dreams, follow their rules. Ten years from now, you’ll be giving an old man a yearly check-up with a frown. He’ll think it’s because of his hairy and wrinkly back. You know it’s not. You’ll think back to right about now and say to yourself What if I had stepped up and talked to Mom and Dad about being an architect? But you didn’t. Now it’s kind of too late to change your career path. So make the right decision now. Don’t let your parents’ dreams influence you; it’s your dream. You dared to dream it. Now achieving it isn’t too far.

This might change your mind about what you believe in, who you are, and what you want to do. I most certainly will be giving my future children their own free will, and support them for who they are. Will you?