thomsen.

To Be or Not To Be? 
by: Julienne Nguyen

Do you find yourself in a place where you are not sure if you were supposed to be there or not? Have you found yourself in a position that you wanted to go for something else when others expect you to be this person they want you to be? Then you’re not alone. I am not telling you to be someone else who you don’t want to be. I am here to inform you that you have the right to find who you really are to yourself.



Yes, sure, we have reached a point of our lives when we realized that we don’t know we really are. That’s because we grow in the environments surrounded by people who taught us the good (and bad) amounts of things that shape our thoughts and lives daily. Not just our families, but also friends and everyone else who came in and go out of our lives as we get older in life. We might have kept some details very solid into our minds on how we should view a thing or two. So from that point, we knew that we had to find out the real person inside ourselves.

How do we do that? We have to look at the facts that we want to install in our futures especially the knowledge and skills that we can use for our lives and careers. As usually, there were high expectations from our parents that we can take the opportunities that they did not have during their times growing up. A large percent of students went on to colleges after high schools which did not surprise me because they know what goals they wanted to have in their futures. No matter if we are college-educated or not, our families and friends give us their opinions or point of views on something when we ask questions about it such as politics, relationships, or life. Jobs might fall in the categories that you have discussed with your families (and friends) especially your parents. Our parents or guardians expect us to be someone else and go in a career that they believe we can accomplish that role. The question is: Do we want to go down that way or this way?

For years, I was being fed with those thoughts from a number of people including my family members that I should be a teacher. I just nodded my head off and followed that one for a long time. It wasn’t until my senior year in high school when I realized that teaching wasn’t for me for few reasons including my own personal thoughts after doing my required off-campus community services at a local elementary school. In one of my high school classes, I discovered something fresh and different than what I originally thought what it was about. I found my calling in something else that surprised my family and friends. They did not expect me to go in the psychology fields. Yes, psychology. My parents told me that I opened a new can of worms and realized that it was my decision and they could not convince me to back out because it was me who was going to college, not them.

Many people outside and inside my family had higher expectations for me when I did not want to follow them for few reasons including doing something that I might not like at all. I told a number of people that I decided I did not want to be a teacher after a length of time at the time when I have lost a good percent of interest in. Those same people were trying to discouraging me from going down the different path I was on. They wanted me to be a teacher so I could be a good role model. I resisted against their opinions because they were not giving me the chance that I was asking for to discover myself. There was a point that they wanted me to do their goal(s), but where was my own goal? Why can’t I have my own goals for myself? From that point, I knew I deserve to find something that would be the best for just me and not looking back.

I did not feel connected to the goal of teaching. That thought had me reconsidering my goals for my future. I wanted to do something that involved my passion of helping and working with people. While in college, I took different classes to see if psychology was something that I wanted to do afterwards. It was the midway of my second year when I knew psychology was the one so I stuck to that goal since then. I did not look back and moved forward with my goals that I set up for myself. Again, there were so many people who were trying to convince me to back out of having psychology as my major. I resisted against them and stuck to my desires. My parents had been following my progress and they saw that I knew what I was doing. They let me do this on my own because they knew I need to look farther to see if this was something I could do for many years from now.

During my senior year of college, for my internship program, I found myself working with the deaf children and their families, helping them getting the resources they need; educational and general resources for the deaf children, and support groups and proper resources for the parents to share their experiences with each other and their families at home. Those families made me feel at home already in their American Sign Language classes and their children’s meetings. I saw myself doing this family support services for a long time because I could relate to the deaf children in so many ways, and helping their parents understand better so they could use the resources to help their children be successful adults in the future. Few weeks into the new internship program, my parents saw a change in me and they knew I finally found who I really was to myself while working with people. My other family members had their change of hearts when they learned that I was much happier with my life now and saw the positives from my career. My friends came up to me and told me that they were glad I listened to my own guts and looked at the opportunities that I thought were the best for me.

It was the conversation with my parents when I found my confidence to be my own person, doing the job that I love the most. I was already a new person today than in high school. I did not regret the decision of changing my goals for my future because I knew I had to find who I was inside and follow that instinct of mine. Sure, I still get lots of comments from people on why I didn’t become a teacher. I told them that I wanted to follow my passion instead and I found it. I knew I have answered my question: To Be or Not To Be?

About the author: 

Majored in psychology and graduated from Cal State University, Northridge.
Planning to pursue MA in Child Development and Family Services.
Hobbies: Hanging out with friends, going to the beaches, doing logic puzzles, and reading books.