Breaking the Mold
Who are you? What makes you who you are? How are you different? When looking at someone’s life and trying to answer these questions, you look at their experiences. People’s experiences shape who they are and what attributes they have in life. My life experiences have shaped who I am and what characteristics I have. This is what makes me different. This is how I break the mold.
Ever since I was a kid I was innovative and creative. I remember an 8 year old me quietly opening the door to my room and crawling out. Any 8 year old kid would try and sneak out of bed at night and play with their toys, but this one planned ahead. This kid decided to take a cardboard box, climb inside, and hide from the eagle eyes of his parents. Needless to say my plan failed miserably, but I still carry that “outside of the box” mentality to problems that come my way.
Any project or task I start I am passionate about and I give it my all. In high school I took part in the theater program and gave it my all. I was particularly passionate about the technical side of theater such as stage lighting and set building. My passion for technical theater led to a vast knowledge of technical theater and even landed me a job at a company called Stage Corps. Much of my passion and grit came early in my life struggling in school. Being dyslexic and having ADHD made school a constant struggle, but through it, I learned how to be tough and push through even when it gets hard. I learned to overcome and use my struggle and turn it into a strength. My passion for the things I invest my time in not only lets me power through when the going gets tough, but also helps me turn it into a valuable learning experience.
I challenge everything. I look at situations and ask why. “Why are things done the way they are?” “Is this the best way to do this?” “What could we do differently?” This is evident in my decision to bypass college. I looked at tons of people getting trapped in debt and coming out of college with jobs that don’t even remotely apply to the degree that they graduated with. Why? I am not satisfied with the mundane answers of “just because” and “it’s just what you do.” I am NOT afraid to be different!
While many try to be like others, I run the other way and tread my own path. I don’t settle for good enough. I am different from everybody else, and that’s good. So I want to encourage you to ask yourself: What makes you different? How do you stand out? How do you break the mold?
