Over everyone's life, one of the things that can shape who you can become and how you and the people around you see you is identity. There is so much that is included when we talk about someone's Identity, as it involves your experience, the value you have and the social networking you also have. Over the years of my life, the mindset of me has been careful about the type of people I associate myself with in terms of their identity has been something I didn't joke with.
Today, I will be sharing with us some of the tips that have helped me when identifying with people around me. But before that, let me first talk about understanding what identity is. The short definition I can give identity is just the definition of who we are. Now, this can include our behaviour majorly and the values we stand for. Most of the time, I have come to discover that identity can be self-established and societal-established. What I mean is that you can pick an identity by yourself that you want to established sometimes, society, based on your constant expression of who you are, society can give you an identity.
Using myself as an example, I have a Personal identity which cuts across my behaviour, what I believe in and what I stand for as my values. I also have a social identity which now involves my family, friends and my interaction with the society I find myself in.
In my little experience with life, I have come to discover that we need people in our lives who will play a fundamental role in us. Some of them I regard to them as my friends, families, colleagues and even my fellow community members. We might not know but most of the time, those people I make mention play a crucial role in shaping our identity.
There are positive friends that I have identified and associated with, and as a result of them being positive, they have influenced my life positively. There are also some of them that I have associated with negatively, and I have regretted identifying myself with them because, at the end of the day, they affected my life negatively. I called them the bad association of my life.
Not only people I identify with. I have also discovered that your environment goes a long way in determining who you actually become and so one must be careful when associating with your communities and society also. These involve the religion you find yourself in and the traditions, norms and cultural beliefs of the society you find yourself in. From my end, even though at first I was finding it difficult to associate with those beliefs and customs of the community, I always find myself in, I need to adapt and merge both my personal identity and societal identity into one.
Even though I have been able to identify myself with the right people around me, which has brought peace and lasting change positively in my life, I am always faced with constant challenges when trying to identify myself. One of the constant challenges is trying to adapt and tolerate some of their behaviour. Of course, you will agree with me that we come from different backgrounds and exposure, and so I am not expecting everyone to be like me when it comes to character.
But despite that, trust me some people can be annoying and challenging to identify with. Most of the time, one of the things I always do is to study people first before identifying myself with them. If they carry the same Norms and values I stand for, then no problem, we are good to go, but if there is a contradiction against my values and beliefs, I will avoid Identifying myself with them to avoid trouble.
I conclude that there can be constant challenges for some people when trying to identify or associate with other people around them based on their temperament and their personality. Years ago, I also struggled to associate with people who came my way, whether the right or wrong people, because I was once an introvert and melancholy in nature. But as time goes on, I build up the social aspect in me as that will foster my interaction with the society I find myself in.
Mindfulness is needed when trying to associate or identify with people. You need to, first of all, have your values and standards and stick to them. Then you build it up from there as that will help you to know people you should identify with and people you should slide in your life.
This post was inspired by the #inleo community and this is my entry for Day 8 of the September Inleo Initiative