True Individuality: Attainable Yet Difficult to Reach

True Individuality: Attainable yet Difficult to Reach

Determining if a person has individuality or if true individuality even exists is a difficult task. The choices people make about how they express themselves and the way they present themselves usually plays critical roles in determining a person's own individuality. There are many factors that come into place in regards to this, for example, the environment someone was brought up or raised in. Someone raised in a poverty-stricken slum in Africa is going to perceive things a lot differently than someone born wealthy with privileges at an early age. Culture varies widely across the continent. Many regions specialize and favor certain foods, music, and traditions more-so than others. The same goes for values and morals. A lot of people have common upbringings, share common traditions, opinions, traditions, and traits, but no one is completely identical. There are many factors that constantly keep us different as individuals, no matter how common we seem to be most times. Tragic and traumatic events, as well as any type of event for that matter (powerful or small), affect people differently. These events define who we are at the early stages of our life and play a part in defining who we are individually. For example, someone who was bullied for most of their lives until after highschool will act, behave, and respond differently to things than someone who was a popular kid or someone who was completely home-schooled.

Everyone has a chance to become "true individuals" and non-conforming followers to society, it's really just a choice that they make every day (whether they would like to admit it or not). The people we surround ourselves with and associate with play a huge part in influencing our decisions; both every-day decisions and sometimes even critical tough decisions that could affect someone forever. Regardless, everyone has the ability to make a choice to give in to those influences or not (good or bad). That's why programs like "D.A.R.E." and "Above the Influence" are even around in the first place--to help positively influence and forewarn the dangers of doing what they see as bad things (like drinking at an early age, smoking cigarettes, unprotected-sex, etc.). They encourage young children and teens to be themselves, which can be seen as reaching towards "true individuality" in my opinion. No one's forced to be a bank-robber or a narcotic, there are negative choices and decisions that they've made that have led up to the point where they became those particular things that society has collectively deemed as "negative things" to be.

After you reach a certain age, most people recognize the difference from right & wrong and realize the way they want to be seen around others. By making a choice to become a "football-player", "rock-musician", or "cheerleader", you're already one step closer to reaching individuality. You can even choose to be none of those things entirely (like something completely new that you imagine) or nothing at all if that's your desired option. Everyone's capable of doing that, it's really whether they have the willpower to be strong enough and do what they truly want to do. Americans in today's society are generally somewhat obsessed over social-status. Everyone has certain dreams and desires, but they're usually crushed after they see the actual standards and requirements to be those things (like being a professional-athlete, medical doctor, model, actor, etc.) Some people fight to overcome those obstacles while others lower their standards and resort to being something more attainable and have average jobs. Other people give-up altogether