Me

I dont believe that there is one event or experience that has truly shaped me into the person I am today, instead it is a collection of all of the experiences I have had in life. It is the people I have met, the dreams I have made, the music I listen to, the conversations I engage in. It is everything that I value or have learned throughout life that has made me, me. 

Though I have never experienced a life changing event, a huge influence in my life are the people I surround myself with. My family, my friends, the people I am simply acquainted with all have something to offer me. They have influenced my thoughts, my opinions, and how I view the world. As much as id like to say that I am my own person, an individual, unique from everyone else, what I have learned is that I am mainly just a culmination of the people I am surrounded by. 

A couple of years back, I read the novel The Five People You Meet in Heaven. I remember not putting the book down until I finished reading it cover to cover. I was infatuated with the book and even when I was not reading it, I was thinking about it. It became hard for people to have conversations with me because most of the time my face was stuck inside the pages rarely looking away. I was so intrigued because I felt a connection to the idea of the story. Though the story mainly focuses on the afterlife and what happens to us after death, it also ventures into the importance of our lives on earth through the connections we make with others. When the main character, Eddie dies unexpectedly, he awakens to a series of reintroductions to five people whom he had met in life all impacting him in one way or another. It expressed give/take relationships Eddie had and impressed me with its creativeness and new take on life. Even though we may not know it, the people in our life  even those nameless people you pass on the street may play a larger role in your life than you ever could have imagined. They are the ones who influence you to do the things you do and make the decisions you make even if you dont realize that they are the reason for your choices.

After reading this book, I began to understand the importance of others and their impact on my life. The people around me have enhanced me, they are what given me inspiration to do the things I love, and they are the ones I gain knowledge from. I have taken something from everyone I know, like my brothers music taste, my fathers patience,or  my friends sense of humor. Knowing these people, especially the ones who have been there for me since I was a young child are the ones I took after and wanted to be like. I would laugh at the same jokes or buy the same shirt as somebody simply because I looked up to them and saw something in them that I wanted in myself. As I grew older I found that I did not need to be exactly like somebody and that being an individual is a wonderful thing, but in the scope of things I am the people around me. The connections I have made with people and experiences I share with them have created who I am as a person. All in all, I believe that everything I do, say, or go through has been influenced by the people around me whether I'm aware of it or not.