Remain Undefined How Big is Your World

i’m going to ask you all a question that

i want you to think about

so if you have a piece of paper nearby

go ahead and grab it

if not you can just participate mentally

how do you define yourself on a piece of

paper i want you to write down

who you are in five words

you can start with i am and complete the

sentence with something that defines you

we’ll give this some time so you can go

ahead and think about it

when i asked you that question how many

of you felt pressure trying to answer it

for some of you it may have come more

easily and you struggle to limit

yourself to just five

or maybe you struggle to even get to

five maybe you started out by writing

down your name

or where you were born your race or your

agenda

maybe you started out by saying your

major or your profession or your talents

or your hobbies

maybe you wrote down an adjective that

describes you or a personal value you

have

the potential for this question is

filled with endless possibilities

yet a definition requires such a narrow

platform to stand your ground on

this probably wasn’t the first time

someone asked you a question about your

identity

and it’s probably not going to be the

last but hopefully i’ll be able to give

you a new perspective about how you can

answer this question in the future

let’s first explore why people feel the

need to define themselves

we’re all familiar with the purpose of a

box boxes help us organize and transport

things from point a to point b

and as humans we too try to organize our

life the way a box

helps us organize our health and our

belongings when we feel lost

what do we do we jump in a box and we

try to give it a purpose

a position a label a definition

the problem with jumping into a box is

that they’re rigid inflexible and opaque

and there’s only so much you can put

into a box until

it’s full and you can’t put anything

else in there

it’s the same with the definition when

you try to define yourself and your

position in this world

you’re setting boundaries on your

potential and the person you can become

inhibiting you from reaching your full

potential and experiencing all that you

can offer this world

a box has a limitation a definition

has a limitation but your potential in

this world however does not

there’s a more effective way to handle

the uncertainty we inherently feel of

not belonging anywhere

but boxing ourselves up and trying to

give ourselves a definition

is not the answer and i won’t deny the

presence of a comfort zone

which is why we should all change our

perspective of them

we should consider a comfort zone a

bubble

the difference between a bubble and a

box is that a bubble is transparent

you can see inside and out of it so a

person inside a bubble is aware of the

space they are taking up

and the potential that exists around

them

but most importantly in a bubble you

have the power

inside of you to make the bubble bigger

so how big is your world when i was born

my world was very small i weighed

only 3.1 pounds and i was born five

weeks premature

but my world wasn’t only small because i

was

small my world was small because i

didn’t know how to take up space

you see not even 60 seconds of taking my

first breath of oxygen

i turned over to my side and i saw two

other girls who kind of looked like me

sitting in my bubble and this is a

picture of me and my triplet sisters

and as you can imagine growing up with

my two best friends laughing

joking playing it felt like nothing in

this world could ever bring me down

wherever i went in life i had a backup

squad and it always felt like it was us

against the world

and that was very apparent to me as an

advantage when we

immigrated from south africa to

california at the age of 12

and it felt like nothing in my world had

changed at all

but then when i began college at san

diego state university for the first

time alone

i discovered that i didn’t know who i

was apart from my sisters

i felt more whole as a fraction and

i was going to have to learn how to

start taking up more space

my journey may have started small but i

was going to build a mentality that

would push me to make my world bigger

so what did i do i started breathing

more i started living

exploring asking questions trying new

things i found my voice

and i wanted it to be heard i started

expanding my bubble

the second i let go of the definition of

being a triplet

is when i started to pave my own road

and become the woman that i am today

growing up it was difficult for me to

focus my hobbies and i always felt that

i was

just hopping onto the bandwagon of

whatever my sisters were doing

which is why the first time i picked up

a canvas i was 22 years old in my

sophomore year of college

and i discovered my artistic abilities

i had always been an artist i just

didn’t know it yet

and the more that i discovered who i was

and started expressing myself

authentically the less i was worried

about

being apart from my sisters and it made

me wonder

what else in my life is inhibiting me

from reaching my full potential

molds of a college education there can

be a lot of pressure at university to

pick a major

i started out as a journalism major

because i was told to apply to just one

and have a point of interest

yet when i got to college there were so

many things outside of my major that i

was interested in

and so i decided to pave my own way i

created my own degree which was called

an interdisciplinary studies degree in

three departments

of journalism advertising art multimedia

and film television

i was hands on with creating my degree

and it fueled my creative spirit

most universities offer this degree to

students they just don’t know about it

because they think they have to fit into

a mold picking a major

in order to be successful i was also the

first person at san diego state

university

to study abroad at a school in israel

called idc

i found out about the school and it

interested me and i worked with the

school and petitioned

in order to get that school approved i

fought for myself

i started to take up more space lastly

i’ll talk about the definition of my

physical appearance

when people meet me for the first time

their initial reaction is about

how small i am and i was expected to

reach

only 4-6 when i was tested for dwarfism

and i spent many years of my life taking

growth hormones in the hopes

of one day reaching the average height

for a female

today i’m 4 10 but people still consider

my height a disability

they think that i may be hindered in my

abilities or that i may be weak and

incapable

and i have a built-in stereotype that

defines me by my statute

but height means nothing if you aren’t

able to develop a growth mindset

after all life is about discovery and

reaching new heights in your experience

growth requires finding your limit line

and crossing it in order to make your

world

bigger it’s about self-awareness and

potential

understanding your current position but

also knowing that there is so much more

that you’re capable of achieving

and experiencing i’ve actively been

working on expanding my bubble to give

it more meaning

i began teaching gymnastics a year ago

and i now practice plyometrics

calisthenics training

i can do 20 pull-ups i can do 5

muscle-ups pistol squats one arm

push-ups you name it

with a growth mindset i believe that my

skills and abilities can be developed

through hard work and dedication

actions can change an outcome and there

is a connection between hard work and

improvement

to develop a growth mindset you have to

be willing to accept

all that you don’t know and start

embracing the experience of being a

student again

when you realize all the things that you

fall short from in your life

can be improved on by learning you begin

to gain confidence in yourself

a passion or desire is just a starting

point but if you want to be great and

discover your full potential you gotta

be prepared to work

hard you gotta find your boundaries and

actively work on expanding them to give

your life more meaning

for the past two years i’ve actively

been running towards fear

i’ve been chasing the things that i

don’t know and searching for the lines

of my limitation

which is exactly how i found myself in

richmond virginia a city that i’d never

been to before

never visited never knew a single person

in the middle of a pandemic and amid

socioeconomic unrest and i had to uproot

myself alone

but it was all to chase my passion and

the relentless pursuit

of reaching my full potential which

right now

happens to be a vcu brand center so i’ll

go back to my question

how do you define yourself

there’s a famous quote by benjamin

franklin and he said

most people die at age 25 and aren’t

buried until they’re 75

and it doesn’t refer to the actual

physical death but rather the death of

one’s hopes

aspirations and dreams and i can’t help

but wonder whether or not the reason we

stop exploring new things in our life is

because

of these molds and definitions we try to

fit into growing up

the age of exploration stops the second

we start trying to define ourselves

life is about discovery and definitions

limit our growth potential and

exploration

they inhibit you from experiencing your

authentic self which naturally is a

curious person

which is why we should all strive to

remain undefined

go against the grain chase the unknown

and never stop

exploring your potential your comfort

zone should not be a box

you should think of it as a bubble that

expands when you

realize that you have the power inside

of you to make it bigger

we all should take a hard look at

ourselves every once in a while to

re-examine our position

and start to inflate our bubble with

more air

don’t be afraid to take up space remain

undefined

because your world could be so much

bigger

and you may never know