Identity: what's dispensable?
Having visited over 13 countries in my life so far (and with 3 more coming in the next few weeks even), I feel like I’ve been exposed to a wide array of cultures. I’m not sure how long you have to stay somewhere for “visiting” to become “living,” but since I was alive and well in all of those places, I guess I’ve actually lived in quite a few countries. Regardless, something that’s kept coming up in my mind the past few weeks has been the conception of identity, as broad and daunting a topic as that might seem. Each new context I find myself in brings its own challenges, joys, and norms. Lest you think this is a phenomenon only for the continent-hoppers of the world, I’d like to point out that this change is just as prevalent when moving to a new city, or even to a new friend group. Irrespective of distance, new experiences inherently bring out slightly different sides of a person because they require different skills and characteristics. While I think one of my strongest traits i...