Living a Diverse Life
My mom is from South Korea and came to the US when she was 18, my father is from Jordan and came to the US at 18 also, and my grandmother on my father’s side was Greek, so diversity is something near and dear to me.
Growing up, I never realized the differences between all the members of my family, because that was the “norm” for me. I just accepted every odd occurrence, but I did not realize how much these odd occurrences shaped my life.
My Korean side of the family was much more reserved, but focused on schooling, and engrained in me the notion of “respect” in a domineering way, while my Arabic/Greek side of the family stressed the importance of “family always being there for you,” and also taught “respect” in a domineering manner. I use the word domineering because many times when I think about common courtesy things such as “respect” I realized for me, as well as others, if “respect” was not engrained in me I could have pushed past it, and ruled it to be trivial, but “respect” is something that goes a long way.
When people would ask me who do I associate myself with “Asians, Middle Eastern people, or Europeans” I would look at the individual and express my ability to connect with people of all ethnic origins because within my mix there is a bit of each culture interspersed. I don’t choose my friends or my associates or colleges based on their ethnicity, I base it more on intrinsic things like: values, character, vision, etc. My friends span all origins from Chinese to Islanders, and I am comfortable with that, because you can learn from all individuals, and the more you diversify your circles the more perspective you will accumulate.
When my families hang out they are segmented in different social circles, and acknowledge each other’s presence, but never cross mingle, which frustrates me. Sure we may not share the same language and look, but we do have commonalities amongst each other, that we can share if we’re willing to go out of our comfort zone a bit, which I try to challenge myself to do all the time. That being said, I feel like because my parents are so culturally different sometimes I have an internal conflict with myself because I do not know what I want in life. I know I love people and leading through humility, and bringing people together, and working with a team, but sometimes I digress because I am unsure of what I should really do.
People and your community you are in pull you in all sorts of directions, and many people expect you to have a set plan, but sometimes the most beautiful and best moments are unplanned. If you follow a set “system” in life and take things one step at a time, how actually fulfilling is that?