IDENTITY CRISIS

                  

The teenage period has been described as the “identity” period. 

A lot of teenagers carve out images for themselves, they would like to be seen and revered in the light of these images. As a teenager, I created an image for myself and I hoped the image would define me. I always wanted wear the neatest school uniform and whitest socks (but I was in actual sense scruffy), I wanted the finest designer school bags and shoes (Addidas was the best I got), I always begged to be given designer wristwatches (although I was never given a Swatch) and above all, I wanted a click of friends with the same taste, class and swags. Anything short of these gave me an inferiority complex and made me jealous of others, be it boy or girl that had my dream looks. I was simply a “strivo”, striving so hard to keep up with the imaginary me.

I remember how I updated myself regularly with the latest Hollywood high school movies, they were my life tutors. I remember watching “Love don’t cost a thing” and I started rehearsing how to be Christina Milan (not realizing she is an adult working to earn a living), lolzzz, it wasn’t a difficult task, she was simply my role model. I remember my religious ways of watching music videos and learning the entire dance steps, I knew all the musicians, their songs and all lyrics and the story behind them (that was some dedication and hard work, lolzzz) and show them off in school. I was simply top on my social games.  All just to create an image of me!!!!! I wanted everyone to see the image of me of was creating, I wasn’t trying to discover me or get to understand me, but instead, I wanted to be someone else. I wanted to be the coolest kid in school, I wanted to be one of the most popular kids in school, I wanted to sneeze and everyone would catch a cold, I wanted to be a goddess! I was an informed goddess (in my mind) and any adult that wasn’t that informed is simply fit for the museum (as an ancient artifact). It was all so interesting and on point to me at that time, but the question is: did any of these things actually define me, was that image the real me that God had created me to be? The answer is simply NO!!!!!! 

All those were just my make believe for me!

Looking back, I realized I was living a fiction, not a real life, just living my fantasies (without being Walt Disney). I fought to keep this life up a lot of times and was simply in a competition with everyone else. I had no real peace inside me, I suppressed the me God had created and recreated a fake me, so that I could impress people that were living their real lives and working towards achieving their God given glorious destinies. But why was I acting this self-scripted drama? Because I did not have an idea of who I am, I did not know who I really was, I had an identity crisis. The truth is I was not alone in my crisis, there were and still are trillions of teens just like me with identity crisis, this is a challenge faced by teen while growing.  Identity crisis is a time of intensive analysis and exploration of different ways of looking at oneself (Erik Erikson, 1970). A survey was conducted in a state in the US on 272, 400 students and it showed they had so much self-doubt and confused about a lot of things, from their looks to their relationship with adults and they really wanted answers.

So, how do I really know who I am?

The real you is lying deep down within you, it only needs to be dug out and activated. Ask yourself: what do I want for my future? Your desires for your future would definitely blend with your natural abilities, then, with hard work, you can develop and perfect them. As teenagers, we lay foundation for our future, we develop habits that can make or mare our future. 

Here are some things that we can do to help ourselves:

Concentrate your energy on getting good grades in school: The truth is the world required you to have a productive brain to solve problems that arise every second. Problem solvers do not get answers by fluke; they do so by exercising their brains, developing it to produce the right results at the right time. The least exercise you can do is to develop your brain is to work hard to get good grades in school right now. This matters more than your social life, it is easier to catch up socially than academically. Good grades open doors for you, gives you a wider area of choice in terms of career and earns you respect from both your mates and adults. 

Develop your talents: We were all created with a treasure within us to discover. With hard work, we can discover, develop and perfect our talents. The Bible make us to understand that the talent of a man would make him stand before kings and not ordinary men. Ask Chinamanda Achibe, she will tell you how her writing skill got her world famous at the age of 26.

Cultivate good morals: Good grades, good looks, great talents, but with bad moral skills is equivalent to bad social skills. You will hardly find people who are interested in interacting with anyone with ill-moral people. You can rise to great height with your talents, but bad morals will only help you create a path to destruction. Samson in the bible is a good example.

Respect adults: Whether you regard them as ancient or meant for the museum, adults are wiser and you need their wisdom. Experience they say is the best teacher, which means these adult have been taught by several experiences of life they have been through which you have no idea of. If you are humble enough, they would share these experiences and lessons learnt with you. Do not ever disrespect an adult because they do not look like role-models on TV, real life adult have more important issues to think about than to be thinking about cloths, movies and music videos.

Be confident in yourself: You were beautifully and wonderfully created, God took His time to create you, He loves you and watches over you and all that concerns you by the second, so why would you not be confident in yourself? Confidence helps your social skills and know that you have been created to be the best, so you should not feel inferior to anyone.

I learnt a wise saying from the movie, The Princess Diary, part 1: Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent. Remember, fine cloths do not define you (that does not permit you to be scruffy); designers are human beings whose hard work and consistency have made them popular, the trust people have in their product have made their products highly priced, nothing short of that. So why don’t you emulate them and try bring out the best in you and see how far you will go with that.