Change, whether good or bad, is still extremely difficult for us as humans to take on. Even good changes such as finishing school, starting a new job, and starting a family are all changes that may occur in a person’s life and still be seriously impactful. Even with this reality, it is important for people to embrace change, no matter how difficult because I believe, resisting change worsens the situation and makes it even harder to adapt to other changes in the long run. Embracing change is extremely important in our lives as humans for our development and growth in society. Although it is not an easy task, as humans we will constantly face different changes in our lifetime and it is important to use such opportunities to learn about ourselves, challenge our ideas, and expose ourselves to new experiences.
Throughout my life, I have dealt with many different changes that have made me good at embracing and adapting to various situations. For example, after finishing the sixth grade at a school I had attended since I was in kindergarten, I was finally moving to a new school for seventh grade. Walking into the building as a student for the first time was a complete culture shock for me. I saw very few Black students and everyone I saw was either Hispanic, Brazilian, or Portuguese. This was a huge shift from what I had experienced in my old school where all the students were African-American or children of African immigrants. The topics changed, the jokes were different, the shared understandings were no longer there, and this was a hard pill for me to swallow. This was my first time ever being in a situation where I was of the minority in the room and I knew I had to adapt because I knew this was not going to be the last time I experienced such. I quickly made friends with a Brazilian, a Portuguese, an Ecuadorian, and a Dominican and coming from a Nigerian background, it was not easy to hold conversations at first. I constantly felt myself being left out because I was not from the same area of town and I did not share similar experiences as them.
As time went on, it became a lot easier to be in this environment. Walking into the school building, I no longer felt like a stranger but rather that I belonged. Having friends from a different cultural background as me, I embraced this change by learning more about their culture, about their languages, and their foods. Something that I initially thought would keep us separate, actually brought us together. I taught them about my Nigerian culture and my identity as a Muslim and it soon became a way for my friends to learn about different cultures as well.
It was not easy to adapt to this new school at first but being able to embrace this change made it so much easier coming to college. Attending Bryn Mawr, a predominantly white institution, as a Black Muslim girl, I knew what the environment would be like and how I would constantly not see people that looked like me in classrooms, the dining halls, work environments, and around campus in general. However, having had the experience of being of the minority in my middle school and adapting to this change, coming to Bryn Mawr I knew how to carry myself confidently without being ashamed of what I looked like. I learned from my middle school experiences that being different is not a negative thing and I should in fact feel confident in my differences. As a junior at Bryn Mawr, I have adapted to the culture shock that comes with being a Black Muslim in a predominantly white environment. Contrary to life at home where many of my friends and those in my community are Black Muslims, being in a new environment with those who do not look like me has taught me the importance of holding my head high and walking around confidently. Having adapted to change, I have been equipped with a toolkit necessary to live my life after college in new work environments where I am most likely going to be from the minority.
As humans, change is an unavoidable part of life and the only healthy way to deal with change is to adapt and embrace it. Even though this is a very difficult process, adapting to change makes it a lot easier for a person to be confident in all situations in their life because they have learned to be flexible and familiarize themselves with the unfamiliar. Embracing change is a crucial part of life and I believe that resisting change makes it more difficult for a person to reach their full potential. Once you embrace change in your life, it becomes a lot easier to be courageous in different scenarios. This is important because if a person walks around constantly feeling scared and opposed to change, they will prevent themselves from many beneficial opportunities and in the end, stay stagnant in all aspects of their lives.