Who We Are as a Product of Who We Were

In October a took two of my best friends home with me for an afternoon and we went to Salem for Halloween. We had a great day and a really fun time with my parents. As I drove into my neighborhood one of my friends commented on the fact that it was strange that we don't know each other as the people we were before going to Babson. We only know the present version of each other and not who we were or who we are at home. We know the "Babson version" of each other, if you will. It's an interesting idea and it got me thinking a lot.

Only a few of my friends from Babson have been at my house and met my parents. These four or five people definitely have a better idea of who I am than any other people at school. My home and family define who I am more than anything else does.

For me, the question this raises is whether or not people at Babson truly know me. I think the answer is a complicated one but the best one that I can come up with is that they know me as my present self. This present self has no baggage attached and no thoughts of my past affect who I am to them. This is both good and bad. I can tell them certain things (and not tell them others) about who I was and how that affects who I am now. This is the beauty of college: in many ways you can be who you want to be without the constraints of your past. I loved this about Babson: I was definitely true to myself and who I was but could further define myself as who I wanted to become rather than who I was in the past.

I think the people at Babson in many ways know me better than anyone else, except for my family and parents. They know me in the present and as I want to be in the future. They know me for who I am and who I want to be. This is the truest version of myself there is. The past is the past and I like to think that everyone should be able to move on from it and learn and grow from it without being bound to past mistakes.

I am lucky to have friends who seem to believe the same thing. They are the nicest, most fun group of people I know and they let me be me and forgive me for the past as is appropriate. I am permitted to make mistakes and own them and grow from them. At the same time my friends let me write my/our future with them. It is important to be able to have control over the future without being controlling.

Thanks to all my friends: you're better people than I am. I can (and do) learn a lot about the world and myself because of you all. I hope that I am becoming a better person because of you , and I truly believe that I am. My family and my friends are the world to me and I do not know what I would do without them.

I am one of the luckiest and richest people alive in terms of great friends and I hope I never take that for granted and I hope that I can keep learning about myself from them and continue the self-improvement which I have undergone in the past year.

Thanks to everyone who reads this too :)