Becoming Who You Like

You can be your most awesome self, no matter what your environment does to pressure you into another identity.

I think that at least 40% of the people I know got stuck in the 10th grade. In the American public education system, the opportunities are generally comply or fail. Having new ways of thinking, being creative, responding to situations like a hunter instead of a farmer, preferring adventure to information – all of these fit into the “non-compliant” opportunity, and are therefore classified as “failure.”

By the 10th grade, students have usually fallen into the very general categories of submitted to the curriculum, complainers about everything that is work or causes inconvenience, or so much not submissive that they won’t be present the next year. The percentages in each category vary from community to community.

Those three responses are reactions to the culture of the education system. The exceptional people who will be the next generation of inventors and creators are generally perceived to be troublesome, asking too many questions for which the syllabus has no answers, for example. They sometimes fit into the opportunity called failure, too.

You are not bound by your environment to stay immature. The culture that surrounds you doesn’t have to be where you find your identity. The fruit of the Spirit can be the source of your character and your attitude and your world view.

You get to decide. Go be awesome!