The Paths Of Life

The paths of life often lead to different directs, the path to take is up to an individual. These paths can be positive or negative and can potentially lead to good or bad. Over the past five years I have found meaning and purpose to my life. I have chosen many paths that have been positive for building myself in the past five years. The evolution of my life can be described by many theories. Many roles, such as family, culture, gender, race, and religion have help to guide my path for my development and growth. Often times I ponder on my past and think of events that I could have change and why I would have changed them.

Then I remember, had I changed the past and chose different paths of life, I would not have the life that I live right now. Reflecting over the past five years, I could best use Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to describe my personal growth to discover my purpose and meaning. I always have had the physiological needs provided for me. Some of these needs are food, sleep, and water. My safety needs have been met as well. These needs would be shelter, clothing, and a safe environment. Only in the past five years have I started to build my personal pyramid to the top. The third level is belongingness and love.

People desire to be accepted and loved by others and to form affiliative, loving, and intimate unions (McAdams, 2009). In the past year I have come to truly fall in love with my husband. I have also made a small social group of friends that are there for me. This has really impacted my life in a positive way. The next level on the pyramid is a person’s esteem needs. This is the level that I am working on right now. This includes achievement, approval, recognition, and status. I am working on achievement by finishing my courses with hard work which results in good grades.

I feel that the grades gets my parents, in-laws, and husband’s approval. This recognition really makes me feel good about myself. I am building self-respect and the respect of others. Finally, there are the needs for self-actualization, which motivate the person to fulfill his or her own potential above and beyond the lower needs (McAdams, 2009). This is the top of Page 3Personal Narrative the pyramid. Self-actualization is my overall goal. After completing college and upon getting a good job, I believe that I will feel self-actualization. Throughout my life, different roles helped to shape me into the person that I am today.

These roles involve religion, race, culture, family, and gender. I was born and raised a Catholic. I married into the Lutheran church. Today I just simply state that I believe in God and I am Christian. I exercise the sign of the cross before and after prayer. This would be a physical sign that I am or was Catholic. I do not believe that my personality was shaped around my childhood religion because I do not agree with many views of the church. My race and gender only played a small part into my personality. I do not believe that race or sex makes a person who they are. I do not discriminate and I believe in equality.

A person’s family and environment can play a huge role in how a person turns out to be. Then there are people like me, who are stubborn and choose to be their own person whether or not anyone else likes the choices made. I grew up in a low income house with two very hard working parents. My parents were very strict and my brother and I had very little material items compared to our classmates. As soon as I was old enough to get a job, I got one. I wanted to have new clothes and an up-to-date hair style. I love fashion and materialistic things. I know this sounds high maintaince, but I enjoy the things of the world.

Despite my love for having materialistic items, I would give the shirt off my back for someone in need. I have a very kind heart and enjoy helping others. Helping others never happened in the house I grew up in, because we were simply just getting by ourselves. There are bits and pieces of my life that was shaped by religion, race, gender, culture, and family, but for the most part, I am my own person simply by loving life and working hard.

Looking back on my life, there are several times I would love to have changed a path that I had gone down. The path that I frequently ponder how my life would have been different is if I would have Page 4Personal Narrative saved my virginity for marriage. I made the decision in high school to have sex and as a result, I became a teenage mother at the age of seventeen. I love my son but I also wonder how my life would have been had I not had a baby so young. I believe that if I had not had a baby in high school, I would have went away to college at a traditional campus.

Chances are I would have not met my loving husband, and then I would have not had my other three beautiful children. I believe that everything happens for a reason. The paths that we choose in life shape us into the person that we are today. My choices have shaped my personality into a strong, stubborn, loving, caring, and independent person. This person is a wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, and student. Without the twists and turns in my path of life, I would not be the woman that I am today.

Reference

McAdams, D. P. (2009). The person: An introduction to the science of personality psychology (5th ed.). Hoboken, NJ: Wiley.