Finding Myself: My Experience

June 22, 2015. I packed my bags and jetted off to LA to join a summer program at UCLA run by Oxbridge Academic Programs. Honestly, I was terrified, being in a brand new city with people I’ve never met before seemed like the most nerve-racking experience ever. I was determined however, determined to discover my passions and ultimately “find myself”. So, with passport in my hand I ventured off into the summer that would change my life.

Growing up in a suburban neighbourhood and being surrounded by people with average hopes and average dreams, it was hard finding someone who was as passionate as I was about making it to the big leagues. As a result of this, my life was really revolved around discovering myself and finding people as motivated as I was. In ninth grade, when I saw a flyer advertising the opportunity to study in New York for a summer, I knew that this was my chance to finally discover who I truly was and be able to meet people who had the same aspirations as I did. For the next two years I worked to get my grades up and I finally built up the courage to apply. I was almost sure that I was going to get accepted, I had the perfect application, great references, and an astounding GPA, or so I thought. Sadly, a few months later, I had gotten an email from the program stating that I had not been accepted. In that moment, the world came crashing down on me and it was as if all my dreams and motivation had been drained from my body. It was a life altering experience that I’ll probably never forget. After a few days of just sitting in my room and not knowing what to do, I realized that feeling bad for myself wasn’t going to help anyone and that I had to get back on my feet and try again. So, I hesitantly applied for Oxbridge UCLA program, in my eyes, LA was the total opposite direction I wanted to go. I thought that every person in LA was an unmotivated, laid-back hippie who couldn’t care less about taking life into their own hands. After quickly getting an application together and sending it off,  I was accepted into the UCLA program. I decided that if I was going to make anything out of this program, I had to look at the positive side of things and saw this as an opportunity to do some soul searching and self-discovery.

I spent the next month in one of the greatest city’s in the world and met some of the most fantastic people I’d ever met. I remember standing on Manhattan Beach the last night, with the sound of the waves hitting the shore, and thinking to myself “So…When do I find myself ?” And it hit me, I had spent so much time trying to discover who I was that I totally forgot to appreciate who I had become along the way. Did expect myself to just sit down after that trip and be visited by an angel who would tell me who I was and what my exact purpose in life was? That’s when I realized, this person I was trying to find, wasn’t looking to be found. He was looking to be created. We spend so much of our time looking to find ourselves, but how do you find something that is still in the midst of it’s creation? You’ll never truly be able to find yourself until your done discovering, learning, and living. We find bits and pieces of ourselves here and there, but we’ll never truly be able to find ourselves as an entirety, and that’s ok. I believe that the reason we try to find ourselves is because we want to give our lives a purpose, but what we fail to see is that there is beauty in the battle to find this purpose. Instead of only trying to find happiness and purpose within yourself, try to find it within others. It wouldn’t have mattered if we were in LA or in the middle of the ocean, it’s the people that made my trip worthwhile and assisted me in finding out who I wanted to become. I realize I’ve covered a lot in this short blog post, but what I really want you to take home is that you need to quit trying to find yourself and instead focus on creating the person you want to become through others, your goals, and the many journeys you’ll take in life. Don’t expect this person to just pop out of you one morning, instead, think of your life experiences as building blocks to your ideal self. I know I’m just sixteen, and I have so much more to learn, but in this moment, as I am writing this to you, I don’t know who I am, and I’m perfectly fine with that.