Who am I? Who do I want to be?

BIO: Ethel Nzombe, better known by her friends as Miss Ethy West, is a London based Psychology and Sociology student   at Brunel University. Ethy is the last born of 3 sisters and her passion comes from her family. Her hobbies are reading and hair dressing  and she also has a passion for music , fashion, food and film. Ethy’s interest in Psychology has helped her branch out and start writing and she aims to inspire other women with her work.

Who am I? Who do I want to be?

Those are questions that I would rather not answer because at many attempts I spiral myself in so much thought I end up losing my trail and end up even more confused than before. However, as young women it is important for us to have a good picture of who we are because, thanks to globalisation, there are so many people we could potentially be and if we do not have a good idea we might spend quite some time just trying out identities but not quite fitting into one. It is good and very encouraged to have dreams and aspirations but sometimes when you do not fully know who you are or you potential it may be hard to judge whether a dream is too big or indeed if the sky really is the limit.

So far I have come up with a couple of ideas that helping me realise all these things about myself and whilst I have not got all the answers that I would like I feel that if I keep looking according to my plan  l could potentially get a better understanding.

First thing we all need to truly show us who we are is our family. They may be close or far from us at present but it is worth finding out from them were you came from because they allow you to gain  a solid idea of who you are as an individual even if you may not still be in the same society that you came from. Knowing about your family is good because you can identify any traits that you share and their history can help you shape your future.

The second way to really get to understand about you is through friends. My friends play quite a big part of my life. Living at University means they practically live my life with me. They are always there and they have a good understanding of who I am, how I act and react, how I fell e.t.c. Sometimes it may be hard to review yourself objectively when trying to find your strength and weaknesses but talking to friends could really show you a lot about you in a way you may have not seen before.

The last strategy I’m using is something I have always known but I just picked up from a friend at the start of the New Year. It’s writing a list. My mum always told me the importance of lists but it never really occurred to me the extent at which just writing things down could organise your life.

In my list I wrote things I want to do, preferably this year; things I would like to change and also things I thought could be fun to try out. Writing this put things into perspective in that I started to think of my dreams vs. potential and this allowed me to come up with elaborate plans on how I could achieve my plans. Dreams that seemed too unrealistic or not fully formed got reassessed and sometimes removed in this process without feeling like they had been crushed. Instead, that is when suitable, well thought out and possibly better dreams ended up coming from.

Now I know that my lists are not written in stone and life doesn’t happen in the respective order as the pages in my journal. Unexpected turns happen but I reckon that sometimes it is good to have a reminder of all you dreamt of and who you thought you were so that when it happens that life moves you and you end up forgetting you could always look it up.  You may need to adjust a few things and remove others completely but at least you will have something to build yourself up from and though your path will have changed you will not feel completely lost. At the end of the day that is what we young women are really scared of: finding ourselves lost in this big world and not knowing how we got there or were and what to go back to.