By: Dafina Dailey

Every girl goes through iden­tity issues. Who am I? Who do I want to be? This is a ques­tion that we search for the answer to through­out our lives. This ques­tion is answered by also ask­ing sev­eral other ques­tions. Ask your­self what makes you dif­fer­ent? What hob­bies do you like? What makes you happy? All these ques­tions can lead you on the path of get­ting to know who you are, but remem­ber this process does not come overnight, it comes with liv­ing and learning.

I once asked my grand­mother sev­eral ques­tions, “When do you stop learn­ing, when do you know it all-when do you know who you are?” I asked her these ques­tions because I looked for­ward to being that smart some­day. I looked for­ward to know­ing who I was.

Her advice was sim­ple, “You don’t.”

You don’t? I thought con­fused. Then I asked, “Well what’s the point of get­ting older?”

She smiled at me and then she replied, “When most peo­ple grow older they get com­fort­able in their skin. You know what you stand for but you also know that you never stop learn­ing. And you should never think you know it all, because knowl­edge and lessons come from any­where and any­body.” What my grand­mother told me is the infor­ma­tion I take with my on a daily basis.

It is a fact that teach­ers can learn from stu­dents and stu­dents learn from teach­ers. Chil­dren learn from par­ents and par­ents learn from chil­dren. The cycle of learn­ing is never end­ing, so it is impor­tant to keep an open mind about life and the peo­ple that sur­round you, so you can become a bet­ter you.

Be unique

There is noth­ing wrong with being dif­fer­ent, whether it’s how you dress, act or look. Think about it, if every­one were the same, life would be bor­ing — we would be like robots. So learn to like peo­ple or respect them for their differences.

Your friends should reflect your personality.

It is true – you are who your friends are. Why would you hang around peo­ple you didn’t like, or peo­ple who didn’t share some of the same hob­bies or opin­ions as you? So choose your friends wisely, make sure you are hang­ing around them for a good rea­son. You should spend time with them because you actu­ally enjoy being around them not because they are con­sid­ered “cool”.

Accept or Change

Accept the things you can­not change and change the things you can, oth­er­wise don’t waste your time com­plain­ing. This is an old say­ing, that in sim­ple terms means, some things you can­not change, so it’s bet­ter to accept that you can’t change them and move on to some­thing you can change.

Embrace and Love You

Embrace and love who you are by improv­ing your­self on a daily basis. Remem­ber that no one is per­fect. Every­one has some­thing they don’t like about them­selves that they want to improve on. Nine out of ten kids are bul­lied or made fun of in school. So don’t sweat it if some­one is teas­ing you, it really means that they are not happy with them­selves, they are jeal­ous of you or just plain mean — so take it as a compliment.