how to write essay who am i

Sample Essays on “Who Am I?” How to guide, with Outlines

Published by gudwriter on November 23, 2017 November 23, 2017

How to Write an Essay About Yourself

Many students, from high school to college level, do not know how to describe themselves. They mix up ideas as they do not really know what they need to include in their writing. The main aim of a who am I essay is to make the reader understand who you are and what you believe in. Remember, the essay doesn’t have to be always about the positive side- you can include your weak points as well in a creative way. You can also write about what makes you unique (unique skills, character, etc). If you need help, college admission essay writing services is available to assist you.

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Striking the balance makes your essay realistic and convincing.

Character : What are your character traits? Which habits define you?

Values : What is your value system? Here, you need to include things that inspire you. It is here that you state your beliefs, motivations, principles, and inspirations. The reader expects you to have either staunch stands on certain things and this is the part where you make them know. Do not highlight radical points, though.

Skills : What aptitudes do you have? And, what is the level in each skill? This may include communication, computer, education, languages, leadership, or anything else you find worthy.

Achievements :

Life experiences that influenced your life

Perhaps you would like to read an essay sample on what makes you unique ?

Who Am I Essay Example 1 Outline

Below is a layout you should follow when writing a personal essay to impress your professor.

Hook – The Question – who am I?
Brief summary: Well, I know quite much about myself: I am a social, kind, respectful, and principled young man.
Thesis : I am a kind, friendly, respectful, and principled young person.
Point : Social
Illustration : Meeting new friends
Logic : Makes me dynamic
Thesis relation: A cheerful, social and accommodative person is how many people know me.
Point : Respectful and law abiding
Illustration : Want to get along with everyone- both juniors and seniors. Car seats, polite character
Explanation : I know the limits
Thesis relation : Every day, I want to be known as a person who is respectful even to those who least deserve it.
Point : Hobbies
Illustrations : Sports, chess, music
Explanation : Clear my mind, get healthier.
Thesis relation : Sportsmanship has taught me to be fair other people, diligent and focused.
Point : I am not perfect- when I don’t hit my targets, obvious opposition from people who don’t love progress. My love for novelty makes me uncomfortable with normal rules.
Illustrations : My mum says I am selfish and that I always want everything to go my way. Yet, I’m still the person you will find in doing voluntary community work to help people.
Explanation : I guess my self-esteem is too high for people to put down. This rubs feathers with people who stand my path to success.
Thesis relation : I’d be a liar to say I am a genius, flawless or immortal- and that’s who I am.
Restatement of thesis
Summary of essay
Signing out

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Who Am I Essay Example 1

Who am I? Describing oneself is one of the most complicated tasks. In most cases, we always define ourselves using institutions, other people, or activities. Well, I know quite much about myself: I am a kind, friendly, respectful, and principled young person.

First, I am a sociable person. I love to meet people and make new friends. It’s not that I am an extrovert. However, I always work towards getting along with people. Of course, there are times I enjoy being alone for meditation . However, being around people makes me feel comfortable. I like to utilize every chance I get to make new friends. Interacting with people from different parts of the world makes me a diverse person. I am one of those people who believe that there is richness in human diversity. I am not quite selective of who I socialize with. A cheerful, cordial, and accommodative person is how many people know me.

Second, I am kind and respectful. Well, I appreciate that there is a thin line between being social and respectful. I want to treat everyone – junior or senior- with utmost reverence. In this regard, I am quite a listener. This didn’t start yesterday- I have always loved to give up my seats to elders in the train since I was young. Again, I am firm and at the same time polite. I love to make my points in a way that won’t hurt those around me. I always desire to be respectful even to those who least deserve it. Being respectful does not subtract anything from me after all.

Third, I have a great affection to team play. Well, I probably got this trait from my life as a sportsperson. I have been a school captain in Team Handball and Badminton. Today, I still participate in these games as a coach. I’m adherent to chess and I could become a grandmaster in the next few months. Sports and competitions have trained me to be fair, diligent, hardworking, and focused. As my hobby, chess clears my mind while athletics make me healthy. I’d definitely not tell who I am without mentioning sportsmanship. Actually, sports largely define me.

I am not perfect, though. I can be moody when I don’t hit my targets. My love for novelty makes me uncomfortable with normal rules. My mum says I am selfish and that I always want everything to go my way. Yet, I’m still the person you will find doing voluntary community work to help people. I guess my self-esteem is too high for people to put down. This rubs feathers with anyone who stands on the path to success. I’d be a liar if I said that I am a genius, flawless or immortal- and that’s who I am.

Anyway, it may be a little difficult to explain who I am. However, there are qualities that are an outright depiction of me. Respect, principles, sportsmanship, and leadership are some of them. As a quick learner, I love to change every behavior that doesn’t make me a better person. The desire to be good to everybody has made me who I am today and I intend to keep it that way.

Personal Essay Example 2 Outline

Introduction.

I give a description of myself in relation to my family background, personality, and how I view life.

Paragraph 1:

Family background

Revolves around strong Christian faith since my parents are staunch Roman Catholic faithful
I was born in Chicago, Illinois 21 years ago and I am the third born in a family of four children.
I am a female of African American origin and I am very proud of my cultural background and family values

Paragraph 2:

My personality

I am outspoken and like socializing and making new friends
I value respect and believe it is two way
I am hard working

Paragraph 3:

My view of life

All humans are equal regardless of their cultural, racial and religious backgrounds as well as gender
I am liberal in that I am open to learning new things such as new cultures, religions, and even languages
Divergent views should be tolerated

I can summarize myself as someone who is respectful, accommodating, and open minded. I appreciate that as a human, I need others for my life to be complete. I believe my personality and world views are matching and thus I find life more sociable and interesting.

Personal Essay Example 2

My family background revolves around strong Christian faith since my parents are staunch Roman Catholic faithful. I was born in Chicago, Illinois 21 years ago and I am the third born in a family of four children. I am a female of African-American origin and I am very proud of my cultural background and family values. Like my parents, I have developed the habit and routine of going to church every Sunday in line with Christian doctrines. As a matter of fact, all the members of my family value attending Sunday masses wherever they may find themselves. I grew up in a working-parents family and I have grown to live in harmony with my siblings.

Regarding my personality, I am one person who is outspoken and likes socializing and making new friends. The number of friends I have in college is uncountable because I have no boundaries when it comes to building relationships. That notwithstanding, I value respect and believe it is two way. I expect that anybody I interact with should show me the same level of respect I show them irrespective of their background or status in the society. I am hard working because my parents taught me to loathe laziness since it is the beginning of poverty and miserable life. To me, respect and hard work go hand in hand. Working hard respectfully has opened many doors for me so far in my life.

My view of life is that all humans are equal regardless of their cultural, racial, and religious backgrounds as well as gender. This is why I have friends whose cultural and other backgrounds are diverse. I am also liberal in that I am open to learning new things such as new cultures, religions, and even languages. For instance, I can speak fluent French and Spanish yet I am American. I also believe that divergent views should be tolerated because this is part of enhancing human diversity. My parents had once tried to stop me from being too open minded but I persisted with it. Being open to new things, in my view, amounts to being accommodative to human diversity.

In conclusion, I can summarize myself as someone who is respectful, accommodative, and open minded. I appreciate that as a human, I need others for my life to be complete. When I show that I care for and accommodate different views, I find it easy working with others. I have thus managed to evade suffering any form of racial or cultural profiling because people find me easy to deal with. I believe my personality and world views are matching and thus I find life more sociable and interesting. It is my intention to continue leading this fulfilling life.

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Personal Essay Sample 3 Outline

I am a faithful Christian who is open-minded, friendly, and action-oriented.

Paragraph1:

In spite of being a staunch Christian, I am open to other people’s ways of worship and generally to other people’s way of life and opinions.

I can listen to and understand what other people say and treat it as their opinion to which they are entitled whether or not I agree with it.
I am able to live amongst people of various cultures.
However, I do not let other people’s views or cultures affect my own.

I am a friendly person who highly values friendship.

I have the habit of forming strong friendships both in our neighborhood and at school.
I have quite a number of friends from various backgrounds because I do not choose friends based on their cultural backgrounds.
I believe in genuine friendship and as soon as I detect that one is not a true friend, I drop them.

I follow my decisions and promises with actions as I believe that it is through actions that one can solve their problems and meet their life goals.

I keep to my decisions once I make them.
I have been able to accomplish many of my life’s endeavors especially in my academic life.
I also know that keeping promises is one of the best ways of keeping relationships alive and healthy.
I normally do all it takes to keep a promise irrespective of who I make it to.

Personal Essay Sample 3

As a person, I feel growing over the years has significantly changed who I am. I have had to see and experience many things that I did not get to see in my childhood. I have also met many different people and visited many places. Some of the perspectives I held about people and certain things have certainly changed. In addition, I have undergone significant personal growth which has seen my personality transform as well. I have also become more decisive in my actions and in my relationships with others. I am a faithful Christian who is open-minded, friendly, and action-oriented.

In spite of being a staunch Christian, I am open to other people’s ways of worship and generally to other people’s way of life and opinions. I can listen to and understand what other people say and treat it as their opinion to which they are entitled whether or not I agree with it. This way, I have been able to learn a lot from others and widen my view of life and humanity. I am also able to live amongst people of various cultures. However, I do not let other people’s views or cultures affect my own as much as I may be accommodative to them. This is because I believe that the world has enough space for everyone to practice their own cultures and share their opinions without interfering with others.

I am also a friendly person who highly values friendship. From my childhood, I developed the habit of forming strong friendships both in our neighborhood and at school. I have carried this habit to my adulthood and I have quite a number of friends from various backgrounds because I do not choose friends based on their cultural backgrounds. However, I believe in genuine friendship and as soon as I detect that one is not a true friend, I drop them. To me, a friend should be like family that is always there for one in their better and tough days and moments. Out of this belief, I have helped a number of friends both in and out of school and shared with them some of my innermost secrets. I too have benefited from the loyalty of these friendships.

Further, I follow my decisions and promises with actions as I believe that it is through actions that one can solve their problems and meet their life goals. This virtue has helped me accomplish many of my life’s endeavors especially in my academic life. For example, since my middle school level, I decided that I would not consume television content during examination periods but maximally concentrate on the exams. I have kept to this decision and have thus posted good grades all through because I always have enough time to prepare for exams. I also know that keeping promises is one of the best ways of keeping relationships alive and healthy. I normally do all it takes to keep a promise irrespective of who I make it to. I do keep even as simple a promise as that of sharpening my younger sister’s drawing pencil every morning before she goes to school.

I am an open-minded Christian who values relationships and I act on my decisions and promises. I am accommodative to diverse views and opinions even when they sharply contrast with mine. I pursue my life goals and keep relationships through action. I also have many friends since I believe that genuine friendship is highly beneficial to humans. This personality and values enable me to live a fulfilling life as I am capable of accomplishing my goals and at the same time live harmoniously with others.

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Who Am I Essay: Writing Tips and Sample

Your “Who am I?” essay is a paper where you describe yourself as a person. Mention what inspires and motivates you, what you love and don’t love, your goals and wishes, etc.

In this article, you’ll learn how to write this personal essay. (And please don’t miss a ready-made example to understand what to describe in your work!)

How to Write a “Who Am I” Essay

You’re that person who knows you best, but writing about yourself is still challenging:

You read a writing prompt for a college application or scholarship , and you aren’t sure if you understand it in detail. How do you know what exactly to mention in your essay? You can’t find words to describe your nature and skills. How do you know if that particular accomplishment or story from your life is worth including?

Stick with us here for practical tips on writing a “Who Am I” essay, with a free template to follow.

How to start?

Ask any writer, and they will tell you that the hardest part of the writing process is to start it. It’s a kind of writer’s block when you stare at a blank screen and don’t know what to write. Below are several ideas that can help you craft a compelling essay about yourself:

Think about one sentence that would describe you best. (A technique some authors use for inspiration: Answer the question, “What would friends write on your grave?” or “What do you want the world to remember about you?” You can start an essay with that phrase.
In the introduction, describe yourself in general . (Be truthful and honest.)
Discuss one or two of your hobbies. (Choose those you’re most passionate about, those influencing your mood — and maybe your skills — most.)
Highlight your achievements but don’t boast. ( Be reflective by analyzing and evaluating what you’ve achieved.)
Add some personality to the essay. (Tell anecdotes, include examples, and be creative to keep readers engaged with your story.)

Short Essay About “Who I Am” Sample

You’re welcome to use the below template from our professional writer for crafting your future “Who am I” essays. Here it goes:

Actionable Tips to Improve Your Paper

Ready to start writing? Consider these helpful tips on crafting a person essay about who I am:

1) Understand your audience

Who will read your essay? Is it a college admission officer who knows nothing about you? Or, maybe it’s your school teacher with some background of who you are? Do you plan to publish your reflection for your social media followers or blog readers?

Depending on the audience, your story may change. Add details about what interests your readers: What would they want to know? Understanding your readers will make your essay more compelling (1). It will be easier for you to engage them and make them emotionally connected to your story.

2) Don’t be afraid to look vulnerable

Allow the readers to see your inner feelings. Sincerity and reflection are the new black, you know. It’s okay to speak about your strengths, weaknesses, or worries to the audience. That’s what differentiates you from other people, thus making you an individual.

Here’s the big secret:

Admission committees appreciate students’ understanding of their weaknesses and areas to grow. Communicate the willingness to change and grow. You’re just a human, after all.

Write about what you want to develop in yourself. Or, tell about life experiences that have changed or influenced you most.

3) Proofread and edit your essay

Once your essay is ready, it’s time to proofread and edit it. Here’s a short checklist of the details to fix if any:

Grammar and punctuation mistakes (verb tenses, sentence structure)
Spelling errors and inconsistencies in names or terms
Incorrect capitalization
No logical flow or transitions between paragraphs
Excessive wordiness and repetition
Biased language
Too much passive voice and redundant adverbs
Too sophisticated words and phrases that have simpler alternatives

That’s It: Your “Who Am I” Essay Is Ready

In this blog post, we tried to cover all the core details of personal essay writing. Now you know how to start it, what elements to include, and how to craft it for better readability and emotional connection with the audience.

We hope our 500-word essay example will help you write your perfect story about yourself. If you still have any questions, don’t hesitate to ask our professional writers for help.

References:

https://summer.harvard.edu/blog/12-strategies-to-writing-the-perfect-college-essay/
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How to Write a “Who Am I” Essay: Free Tips With Examples

11 December 2023

last updated

Essay writing is an exciting and challenging academic activity that helps students to develop essential writing skills, such as creative thinking, reflective, and analytical skills. When writing an essay on the topic “Who Am I,” students should understand what is required of them before writing a paper. Ideally, educational departments and tutors provide instructions that dictate the approach that students should take when writing academic texts. In principle, a “Who Am I” essay should reflect the first-person language because this prompt requires learners to tell the audience about themselves. In this respect, writers can use narrative, philosophical, college application, or autobiographical approaches in writing a paper. Hence, learners need to understand how to write a “Who Am I” essay to provide high-quality papers and achieve desired outcomes.

General Guidelines for Writing a “Who I Am” Essay

Essay writing is an academic activity that exposes students to conventions of formal writing and enhances their critical thinking, analytical, and reflective skills. Although there are different types of essays , there are no significant differences in essay structure , essay outline , and applicable academic writing rules. Basically, the only areas where essays seem to be different are essay topics and their content. For example, an argumentative essay advances the writer’s perspective on an issue, while a narrative essay provides the author’s life story. In the former, students intend to persuade the audience by considering specific arguments, and, in the latter, they inform readers about personal experiences with life lessons. Therefore, in writing an essay on the topic “Who Am I,” writers should first understand what is required of them. Ideally, this type of essay asks authors to talk about themselves.

Differences Between a “Who Am I” Essay and Other Papers

In principle, essays that ask writers to talk about themselves tend to be different from standard formal papers. Basically, one point of difference is that students have to use the first-person language, which is discouraged in formal writing. By considering that a “Who Am I” essay requires learners to talk about themselves, such a paper takes several forms. For example, these structures include formats of narrative, philosophical, college application, and autobiographical papers. Although an essay topic is in a question form, it does not necessarily mean that writers are unsure about themself. In turn, such a format means that they intend to answer this question in a paper by following a particular way to the audience’s benefit.

1. Narrative Format

A narrative essay is one where the writer’s focus is to provide the audience with a life story. Basically, this life story can take many forms, including personal or family experiences. In short, a “Who Am I” essay in a narrative format utilizes personal anecdotes as a means of communication. Moreover, one of the strategies for writing these essays is adopting a “show, not tell” strategy, which means using vivid descriptions rather than informative statements. Therefore, a narrative essay on the topic “Who Am I” should focus on the writer’s personal experiences that help the audience to understand an author. Since a topic is a question, one expectation is that students use personal anecdotes to provide an answer that benefits the audience more than them. When it comes to grading, what matters the most is whether writers have used narratives to educate the audience about who they are.

2. Philosophical Format

Philosophy is a discipline that focuses on unraveling the mysteries of life and nature. As such, a philosophical essay is one in which students engage the audience in a topic of discovery. In this case, one can argue that the essay’s type is informative. Since the topic “Who Am I” denotes an aspect of an investigation, learners who use a philosophical approach focus on telling the audience things about themselves that advance an understanding of human nature. On expectations, the essay’s content should not dwell on the writer’s demographical background or personal experiences but on who an author is in the context of human nature and its strengths and weaknesses. When it comes to grading, what matters is whether writers have applied a philosophical lens to describe themselves. In turn, a good example is unraveling what makes them strong, vulnerable, or weak.

3. College Application Format

College or university application is a type of essay that potential students write to the admissions board or committee of their choice institution. Basically, a “Who Am I” essay for colleges aims to convince and persuade the board or committee that applicants have all that it takes to be a student. To achieve this goal, learners provide essential details that are likely to advance their courses. For example, these details include personal attributes, academic performance (grades), work experiences, and future aspirations. Therefore, the expectation of a college application essay on the topic “Who Am I” is that it should inform the audience what makes writers outstanding and appropriate students for a higher learning admission. When it comes to grading, what matters the most is whether writers have emphatically made a case to college boards of why they are the best candidates for admission.

4. Autobiographical Format

By definition, an autobiography is a life story that captures the subject’s entire life. However, since it is hardly possible to write an individual’s life story – every detail about themselves since they were born – writers focus on what is relevant at any one given time. Therefore, when writing an autobiographical essay on the topic “Who Am I,” the expectation is that students provide details about themselves that help the audience to understand them better. For example, such details include their family lineage, demographical (race, ethnicity, gender, language, and nationality) background, academic credentials, and professional accomplishments. In this case, indicating one’s marital status and life’s philosophy are also crucial details in such an essay. On grading, the thing that matters the most is whether authors have offered a wholesome picture of who they are, from childhood to a present moment.

Essay Structures for “Who Am I” Papers

Academic writing standards require students and researchers to adopt a structure and an outline appropriate for their text when writing any academic paper . Typically, essays assume a three-component structure of introduction, main text (body), and conclusion. Also, when writing an essay on the topic “Who Am I” in narrative, philosophical, college application, or autobiographical forms, a student must use a structure that is appropriate for that paper. Besides a structure and an outline, there are other features that students must consider when writing a “Who Am I” essay in one of the formats.

1. Narrative Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

When writing a narrative essay on the theme “Who Am I,” a student must follow an outline below:

I. Introduction

Topic introduction (Significance of a topic).
Thesis statement .

II. Body Paragraph(s)

Setting or background of an event.
People involved.
Short anecdote.

III. Conclusion

Lesson learned

Essential features. Students must address all the critical features in a “Who Am I” essay as applicable in these three sections. In the introduction, learners must briefly introduce themselves and clearly state a thesis of their papers. In the paper’s body, writers must use several paragraphs to tell the audience about themselves. Since the communication should be in a story form, authors can use each paragraph to tell a personal anecdote that enables the audience to understand them better. Besides, one of the features that writers must capture in the paper’s body is a “show, not tell” method, being an aspect of providing vivid details or descriptions. In turn, the most significant features that students should capture in the conclusion section are a restatement of a thesis sentence and a lesson learned. Also, the audience must see this lesson as a moral of a narrative story.

2. Philosophical Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

When writing a philosophical essay on the theme “Who Am I,” students should follow an outline format below:

Thesis statement (The question that a writer intends to answer).
Clarification of this question.
A reason why this question is critical.
Answer a question through a topic sentence in one or several paragraphs.
Qualify and defend a thesis in one or several paragraphs.
Thesis restatement
Summary of the main point(s) in the body paragraph(s)

Essential features. In each of the three sections, learners must address crucial elements. Firstly, the introduction must be opened with a thesis statement that introduces a question that an author seeks to answer. Basically, learners should make the audience understand a question and explain its importance to them (writers) and the audience. Then, students can use one or more paragraphs in the body section, depending on their paper’s length. In the case of a one-page paper, there should be only one paragraph that opens with a topic sentence. In turn, this sentence should answer a question that forms the essay’s theme. Moreover, learners need to qualify and defend their thesis. In the conclusion section, writers must restate a thesis and summarize the main points.

3. College Application Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

When writing a college application essay on the theme “Who Am I,” students must follow an outline that helps accomplish their objective- convince the admission committee that they are the best candidates among many applicants. Hence, such an outline should be as follows:

Thesis statement.
First supporting idea.
Second supporting idea.
Third supporting idea.
Restate a thesis.
Reflect on the main ideas.
Closing remark.

Essential features. When writing the introduction for a “Who Am I” essay in a college application format, students should provide a hook to grab the attention of the audience. For example, this aspect should be an interesting fact or a quote from a famous personality. Then, another essential feature is contextualizing an essay by stating the purpose of writing concisely. Basically, this statement is what should be a thesis of such a paper. In the main body, learners should use body paragraphs, each introducing a critical idea. However, if a “Who Am I” essay is a one-page document, authors should write specific ideas in a single body paragraph. Also, these ideas are what help writers to strengthen their cases before the admission committee. In turn, such elements can be personal attributes, academic performance, or work experiences. In the conclusion section, learners need to restate a thesis and reflect on the main ideas, closing with a remark that impresses the audience.

4. Autobiographical Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

When writing an autobiographical essay on the theme “Who Am I,” students should follow an outline below:

Introduce yourself to the audience.
Early years.
Future plans.
Restate a thesis statement.
Tie up all the experiences.

Essential features. Essential elements that students must address in the introduction of a “Who Am I” essay by following an autobiographical format are a hook that grabs the readers’ attention, a brief self-introduction, and a thesis statement. In this case, writers should use several body paragraphs in such a paper. However, if an essay is a one-page document, authors should use one body paragraph. Moreover, components of a body paragraph should be details about the writer’s life, such as childhood, early education, cultural orientation, and aspirations. In the conclusion section, learners need to restate a thesis and tie up all the details about their life addressed in the main text.

Effective Writing Strategies

When writing a “Who Am I” essay in different formats, students should use strategies that guarantee a high-quality product. For example, the first strategy is utilizing transitions to create a natural and logical flow from one paragraph to the next or section to section. In this case, common transitions are “therefore,” “additionally,” “put differently,” “hence,” “thus,” and “however.” Then, another strategy is subjecting an essay to a peer review. Here, writers give the first draft to a friend, tutor, or mentor to read and identify errors and mistakes. Also, if there are any mistakes, students revise and edit their papers to eliminate them. In turn, another strategy is proofreading the final draft to ensure that mistakes are not made during typing, or writers must revise and edit it accordingly.

Example of a Narrative Essay: Who Am I?

I. introduction sample.

Adults say that adolescence is a period of development full of dramatic episodes. For me, it is a stage that saw my childhood friends become a significant influence on my worldview. The topic “Who Am I” focuses on investigating aspects of my life that define how I see myself and how others see me. As such, I can say that I am an individual who loathes social gatherings but is always willing to let my friends push me out of my comfort zone.

II. Example of a Body

For me, friendships are not only social relationships but concepts that define how I view and relate to the world. Since when I was a child, I have never been a person who loves social gatherings. I get irritated quickly when people try to dictate what I should be doing or saying at any particular moment. For example, on one occasion, I caused a violent commotion when a friend tried to make me dance with a stranger in a nightclub. However, life is not that easy. We cannot avoid social interactions. For this reason, I have a few friends who are also introverts but who are willing to push themselves to the edge. As a result, they always come up with plans to take themselves outdoors to, at least, interact with others as human beings.

III. Conclusion Sample

When I look at my life, I can confidently say that I rarely interact with people. However, I always let my friends push me from my comfort zone. In turn, what I have learned so far in life is that close friends fundamentally and significantly influence how individuals see the world around them.

Example of a Philosophical Essay: Who Am I?

Although I am an insignificant player in the theatre of life, I hope to become an influential person one day. Basically, the question “Who Am I” underscores the fact that human nature is complicated, and it takes an entire lifetime for individuals to understand themselves fully. In particular, the essence of this question is that, despite sharing humanity’s title, people from all walks of life express themselves in diverse ways.

On the question “Who Am I,” I can confidently say that I am an individual in the process of “becoming.” For example, when it comes to talking about human beings and the world, the discourse that attracts a significant audience is a discussion about men and women who have made a mark in the world. Moreover, these aspects include war heroes, successful businesspersons, influential political leaders, and controversial personalities. In this case, my contribution to the world stage can only be defined as insignificant. Nonetheless, I do not allow this reality to define my self-concept. I believe that “human life is a journey of a thousand miles,” and even those that we celebrate today are once insignificant personalities. Besides, I believe that a secret is to remain focused on what one desires to be in the coming future. In turn, I have a habit of volunteering in healthcare settings because I would love to become a nurse after college.

Life is like a river that can carry an individual to familiar or strange destinations. In my case, I am hopeful that it will relocate me from a place of insignificance to a place of significance. For this reason, I always remain cheerful, optimistic, and hopeful, and, one day, I will be influential like those we celebrate today.

Example of a College Application Essay: Who Am I?

Ever since I was a child, I have always loved to visit hospitals and other healthcare settings. Also, I believe this is why I love sciences and why I have always performed remarkably well in these subjects. In turn, my present application is an effort toward a realization of my dream to become a healthcare professional.

My healthcare career journey started when I was a child, and all along, I have maintained this pursuit. When you look at my GPA, I have performed remarkably well in sciences, which, I believe, makes a perfect case for a healthcare career. Besides education, I have had opportunities to work closely with medical personnel in diverse settings, including first-aid simulations in community healthcare centers. Moreover, I have volunteered in local hospitals, experiences that I consider to have shaped my perspectives on patient care significantly. In this case, I believe that you should consider my application because I am a self-driven individual who always looks for opportunities in challenges. Hence, my admission into a Bachelor of Nursing Degree will orient me to nuisances of healthcare delivery. With such knowledge, my dream to become a healthcare professional would be within reach.

Applying for a Bachelor’s Degree in Nursing is an effort to realize my lifelong dream of becoming a healthcare professional. As you consider my application, I implore you to consider the far I have come in preparation for this career. Thus, given an opportunity to study a program in your college, I will learn to become an effective healthcare professional.

Example of an Autobiographical Essay: Who Am I?

People say that the only way to know an individual is to know a personal heritage. As an African American, I take pride in being part of a race, being so rich in culture, and one that leans on traditions. Talking about “Who Am I,” I can confidently say that I am a child of a world that takes pride in cultural heritage.

I was born about three decades ago in a town famous for its natural beauty. As a whole, the State of Virginia is more rural than urban. Basically, this characteristic has played a significant role in defining my naturalist tendencies. Also, I am a lover of nature. For example, I habitually take walks every evening just to see nature – trees, birds, and butterflies. About education and career, I attended an Ivy League college and have built a career as a legal practitioner. In my family, I have three siblings – one sister and two brothers. In turn, I am yet to marry as my career seems to take all of my time. What I prize the most is the fact that I am an African American young adult with a promising career in a world that seems intolerant to successful individuals of African heritage.

Being a successful African American in a world that seems to prejudice successful people of African heritage is a blessing to me. When I look at my life journey, I can only say that my cultural heritage is among the things I prize the most.

Defining Characteristics of a “Who Am I” Essay

A thesis statement appears in the introduction section of a “Who Am I” essay, thus setting the entire paper’s tone and theme. What follows is a body paragraph that opens with a topic sentence. Moreover, the body paragraph’s content revolves around a topic sentence that advances the essay’s central idea. Then, one of the defining characteristics of examples of “Who Am I” essays for different formats is the use of the first-person language. Basically, this aspect helps writers to “show, not tell.” Also, this aspect is evident in the body paragraph. In a narrative essay, it is an example of the nightclub commotion, and, in a philosophical essay, it is the habit of volunteering in healthcare settings. In a college application essay, the feature is evident in a story about working with medical personnel in first-aid simulations. In an autobiographical essay, it is about evening walks to appreciate nature.

Summing Up on How to Write a “Who Am I” Essay

Essay writing is an exciting and challenging academic exercise for students across all levels of education. Although there are different types of essays, structure and outline formats remain the same: introduction, body, and conclusion. In essence, what students need to understand is the essential features that enrich the content in the introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion. When writing an essay on “Who Am I” students need to know that such a paper is different from a standard format. Moreover, the central point of difference is that such an essay requires students to use the first-person language in a paper, which can take formats of narrative, philosophical, college application, or autobiographical essays. In writing such an essay, students must master the following tips:

use the first-person language;
make use of personal anecdotes;
“show, not tell” by providing vivid descriptions;
develop a thesis in the introduction;
use topic sentences to introduce ideas in a paragraph;
observe a maximum length requirement and a minimum length requirement of a “Who Am I” essay by considering a word count.

To Learn More, Read Relevant Articles

Essay rubric: basic guidelines and sample template, persuasive essay rubric: grading template for excellent papers.

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How to Write Who Am I Essay

Table of Contents

You might think of this task as rare, but you’d be surprised to learn how many times people are asked to write a who am I assignment. If you thought that writing an essay about yourself was only given at school or as part of an admission application, you are very wrong. The who am I question is asked many times in a life of a person, both for work and studies.

Tips for Writing an Essay About Yourself

Naturally, the instructions, requirements and rules will differ based on the situation, so you might want to note them down before you get started. However, there are some things that are common and apply to all essays of this type. So, in addition to the instructions you should look at and control while writing, there are some tips that will help you make the process easier.

Follow a Structure

There’s no better way to follow a structure than by producing a quality, organized who am I essay outline beforehand. This outline will help you organize your content and the structure, with it providing the reader with a coherent, understandable and concise explanation of who you are.

Choose a Main Line

What does this mean?

It means that you need to have a focus in your essay. Whether it is a thing you enjoy doing, a relationship you want to discuss, or a key feature of your own character – this has to be present throughout the entire essay.

Select a Style

What style are you planning to use in your writing? Your story cannot be too varied. We recommend using artistic techniques of the literary genre, such as allegories, metaphors, etc. You can even use humor to make the essay more interesting for the reader.

Be Objective

The goal of this essay is to reveal the personality of the writer. But, this doesn’t mean that you should brag about your traits and fail to mention the negative characteristics. We are all humans, so naturally, no one is perfect. Trying to camouflage this behind your greatest traits can leave a bad impression. So, attempt to be objective in your writing.

Postpone the Revelation

One great idea in essay writing is to postpone the intrigue, the revelation. To keep the reader interested until the very end, keep something to yourself until you get there. Introduce it at the start, but do not go explaining it completely right away. Do it gradually and finish at the conclusion.

Who Am I Essay Samples

Now that we’ve shared some short tips for students who are asked to write such essay, it is time to present you with an excellent example of what this essay should look like. Whether you need it for college or for high school, one of the best ways to learn something is by seeing good examples of it.

Consider this sample your secret assignment helper in writing your own who am I essay. The example is written by experts of AssignmentMasters essay writing service .

Example of Who Am I Essay Introduction

People keep asking me the same question: who and what are you? It was not so long ago that I understood that I don’t have a clear answer to it. At least not yet. I am a human being, so I am as complicated as the next guy. But, my complications are nothing like those of the other guy. They are completely unique. I find some happenings admirable and very pleasant, while others find them terrible. The things they see as great; I can see as outraged. I guess it is all a piece of the puzzle that is called personality. Perhaps this essay will demonstrate mine.

Main Body of the Who Am I Essay Example

To be able to answer the question about who I am, I began with asking people around what they think of me. I am not certain that this helped me get a correct picture, and in some way it confused and worried me, but it certainly gave me a different perspective of myself. What others see in me is something I often know of, but sometimes fail to notice. The latter applies to my errors, which I believe is only natural.

I am an animal lover, a technology addict, and a person who is really fond of travelling. In fact, I am so connected with dogs and other animals, I find it outrageous that I cannot ask them about their opinion about me. So, what’s left for me was to ask my friends and family. And not so long ago, I did.

When I spoke to my computer science teacher and shared my love of technology, she evaluated my work as above average. I expected much more from her, but it surely got me motivated to become better. She simply said: ‘There is plenty of room for improvement, but if you continue with the same enthusiasm, I see a bright future for you.’

As it turns out, I accept things quite literary. With her argumentation, I got it clear that I am not as great as I believed, but my love of technology can be seen instantly. I saw no reason to reconsider my chosen path and my hobbies. As it turns out, I am on the right path. But, I am either not talented, or not attentive enough.

That is when I talked to my father. To tell the truth, my father is my idol and the person I trust most, so naturally I approached him with my troubles. I went to him asking if I should try to pursue something else since this is not a thing I am great at, or try more. To my surprise, my father was completely on the side of the teacher. But, not in a bad way.

This is when I learned some things about myself. My father explained to me that a single barrier or complaint does not mean that I should give up. I never gave up easily as a child, so why would this make me?

He said that it doesn’t mean that my teacher was wrong. On the opposite, he believed that my potential was far from what I showed in life. Apparently, I am ‘too careful to show my strengths’. By trying not to make an error, I don’t take enough risks. I follow guidelines as given and rarely stray from them. It is not my biggest trait, but I do find dedication and persistence to be a good thing. At least I did until this point.

My mother sees my inability to show my computer knowledge as laziness. I do not agree with her, but it is an opinion I gladly accept. Sometimes people see you as you wouldn’t want to see yourself. That does not make their opinion wrong.

Example of Who Am I Essay Conclusion

So, what’s the final say? Who am I?

I am not the greatest or the worst. I am human and I need to try harder. I am a great representative of the humans of my time and my generation. I realize that, in some cases, my strict policy to follow rules and instructions is stopping me from being great. To be truly seen by a teacher, I should work on my own in addition to working with the class. The true potential is built not only by curriculum, but by personal efforts, too.

Did this example and the tips above helped you find the answer to this question? It is now time to sit down and write it. We hope that your essay is a revelation of the greatness that you are!

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How to Write "Who am I" Essay | Start to End Guide

$How to Write \"Who am I\" Essay | Start to End Guide$

Introduction

Here is guide on how you can write a "who am i" essay, 1) write a solid who am i essay introduction, 2)get into details in body paragraphs.

Keep your Audience in Mind.
Remember that the essay must be concise, clear, and informative.
The headings and subheadings ought to be succinct, enticing, and still easy to read.
Make sure that the tone of the essay is what sets it apart.

3) Add a Strong who am I Essay Conclusion

5) recheck all requirements and proofread.

Use concise, simple sentences when writing an essay.
Your aspirations and passions and how they motivate you.
Write about an instance where hardship helped you grow.
How is the quality of your life, as you currently understand it? How does it affect your education, community, and future? Your personal wishes and how they affect you should be addressed.
Use an active voice and a clear structure to convey your ideas clearly.
Before beginning, ensure you fully understand the nature of the essay and other requirements.
Check your essay's headings and subheadings to make sure you remain firmly focused on the topic.
Connect the topic of the essay to your introduction, body, and conclusion.
In a few well-chosen words, the essay title should convey both the entire essay's main idea and its best qualities.
The essay must follow a distinct but simple tone and structure. As a result, it is preferable to write an outline before beginning.
Pay close attention to the conclusion because it will summarize the whole essay.
Before submitting your essay, double-check the word count required by the admissions committee.
Do not overdo anything, and keep it real; the simpler, the better.
Do not use slang, swear words or a lot of informal knowledge.

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College essay

How to Write About Yourself in a College Essay | Examples

Published on September 21, 2021 by Kirsten Courault . Revised on May 31, 2023.

An insightful college admissions essay requires deep self-reflection, authenticity, and a balance between confidence and vulnerability. Your essay shouldn’t just be a resume of your experiences; colleges are looking for a story that demonstrates your most important values and qualities.

To write about your achievements and qualities without sounding arrogant, use specific stories to illustrate them. You can also write about challenges you’ve faced or mistakes you’ve made to show vulnerability and personal growth.

Start with self-reflection, how to write about challenges and mistakes, how to write about your achievements and qualities, how to write about a cliché experience, other interesting articles, frequently asked questions about college application essays.

Before you start writing, spend some time reflecting to identify your values and qualities. You should do a comprehensive brainstorming session, but here are a few questions to get you started:

What are three words your friends or family would use to describe you, and why would they choose them?
Whom do you admire most and why?
What are the top five things you are thankful for?
What has inspired your hobbies or future goals?
What are you most proud of? Ashamed of?

As you self-reflect, consider how your values and goals reflect your prospective university’s program and culture, and brainstorm stories that demonstrate the fit between the two.

Prevent plagiarism. Run a free check.

Writing about difficult experiences can be an effective way to show authenticity and create an emotional connection to the reader, but choose carefully which details to share, and aim to demonstrate how the experience helped you learn and grow.

Be vulnerable

It’s not necessary to have a tragic story or a huge confession. But you should openly share your thoughts, feelings, and experiences to evoke an emotional response from the reader. Even a cliché or mundane topic can be made interesting with honest reflection. This honesty is a preface to self-reflection and insight in the essay’s conclusion.

Don’t overshare

With difficult topics, you shouldn’t focus too much on negative aspects. Instead, use your challenging circumstances as a brief introduction to how you responded positively.

Share what you have learned

It’s okay to include your failure or mistakes in your essay if you include a lesson learned. After telling a descriptive, honest story, you should explain what you learned and how you applied it to your life.

While it’s good to sell your strengths, you also don’t want to come across as arrogant. Instead of just stating your extracurricular activities, achievements, or personal qualities, aim to discreetly incorporate them into your story.

Brag indirectly

Mention your extracurricular activities or awards in passing, not outright, to avoid sounding like you’re bragging from a resume.

Use stories to prove your qualities

Even if you don’t have any impressive academic achievements or extracurriculars, you can still demonstrate your academic or personal character. But you should use personal examples to provide proof. In other words, show evidence of your character instead of just telling.

Many high school students write about common topics such as sports, volunteer work, or their family. Your essay topic doesn’t have to be groundbreaking, but do try to include unexpected personal details and your authentic voice to make your essay stand out .

To find an original angle, try these techniques:

Focus on a specific moment, and describe the scene using your five senses.
Mention objects that have special significance to you.
Instead of following a common story arc, include a surprising twist or insight.

Your unique voice can shed new perspective on a common human experience while also revealing your personality. When read out loud, the essay should sound like you are talking.

If you want to know more about academic writing , effective communication , or parts of speech , make sure to check out some of our other articles with explanations and examples.

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Transition words
Passive voice
Paraphrasing

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Ms, mrs, miss
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I hope this email finds you well
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First, spend time reflecting on your core values and character . You can start with these questions:

However, you should do a comprehensive brainstorming session to fully understand your values. Also consider how your values and goals match your prospective university’s program and culture. Then, brainstorm stories that illustrate the fit between the two.

When writing about yourself , including difficult experiences or failures can be a great way to show vulnerability and authenticity, but be careful not to overshare, and focus on showing how you matured from the experience.

Through specific stories, you can weave your achievements and qualities into your essay so that it doesn’t seem like you’re bragging from a resume.

Include specific, personal details and use your authentic voice to shed a new perspective on a common human experience.

Cite this Scribbr article

If you want to cite this source, you can copy and paste the citation or click the “Cite this Scribbr article” button to automatically add the citation to our free Citation Generator.

Courault, K. (2023, May 31). How to Write About Yourself in a College Essay | Examples. Scribbr. Retrieved March 25, 2024, from https://www.scribbr.com/college-essay/write-about-yourself/

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Who Am I Essay

Section one.

This section is characterized by two major facts that should be put down to guide the whole process. Who I am I essay are approached by understanding the key drivers about an individual and how they translate into one’s culture or way of life. How to write who am I essay will be preceded by thinking about the starter. First, the starter must have a good line that is catchy and long-lasting in the memory of the reader.

The starting Paragraph of Who am I Essay

Chief line: An example of a key/chief line

Contrary to what many would expect “I had to spend more than five years holding critical data from my sibling expecting that he would travel and disregard me. I feared that letting know that a letter admitting to a college in Florida would mean that I would be all alone at home with no one to have fun with. How egotistical was that? We have since made up and I am happy he told me that he did even want to go to that college after all.

Outline of central matters : These are the underlying issues that basically adds gets addressed by the essay of who am I. Getting to pen such down gives you a foundation that once the writing process begins then you will without much energy put the building blocks. Writing of Who I am essay or getting how to write who am I essay is well achieved when the most substantial matters are addressed. A good writer should therefore not ignore key matters such as the relationship between him or her and the world; the experiences got through interacting with others especially the parents and close family members because that is where we get most of the characters that make us who we are.

Section 2 (First Supporting Point)

When dealing with the second section of an essay (who am I essay), this is when breeding of supportive facts is done. You have the topic, the key line and an outline as a roadmap to your destination but you still need to have coherent sentences that push the statement forth to the readers otherwise your essay will be like vessel wandering without a navigator in the sea.

Proof : The third and vital action when explaining who you are in an essay is centered on having evidence that supports your arguments. Even though the essay is about you and your personality, the basic requirement by someone who will be accessing your essay is that they should not be based on wild assertions but must be backed by evidence.

Sentence development : Not so many who am I essay samples pass the test of quality sentence progress sentence because the writers in most cases dwell so much on the first person pronoun to the extent of failing to give more explanation on the facts.

Example of a good sentence: how to write who am I essay

“While I appreciate everything that my mother did for me including taking me to school, I believe that my outstanding character traits came from my father because I see myself as mirroring everything he does as well as his personality’

The emphasis on central matters : The weight put on key issues will make them interesting and comprehensive. The reader has less time to go through a boring article; in that case, you need to remind them why the essay about you is important by stressing the most critical issues driving your agenda.

Drawing a Conclusion

This doesn’t have to be the final step when writing who am I essay, importantly; you must have a structure of a conclusion even if in your mind because it will determine the substance of your document. Note that the final part is as good as the rest of the essay; therefore, a lot of key points must surface again reminding the readers the worth of the document.

An Example of a Finished Who Am I Essay

My family’s personality, their characters, and their worldview are what I attribute everything about me. If I was asked to describe myself then I would do so in light of the background of my family which is so attached to religion and Christianity. Since I was a child, have known my parents to be staunch followers of Christ and lovers of the Seventh Day Adventist where they participate as not only adherents but also choir members.

Having been raised up in Ohio where I happen to have been born, my 32 years have been filled by doctrines of my parent’s church which is now my church too. I hail from a family of five and I am the last born. Proudly I am intertwined between two cultures because my father came from Ghana settled in USA’s Ohio where he fell in love with an American white woman and married her. They loved Christianity so much that they had to nurture their children in Christian life. Just like them, I have dedicated my life to serve the church and spread the gospel of Christ all over the world. I travel a lot to help with the opening of other SDA branches across Africa and here in the US as well. Lucky enough, all my two brothers are also ardent churchgoers exhibiting great knowledge about the bible and values that define one as a Christian.

My Christian background clearly has had an effect on my personality in the sense that I am humble and outgoing. My entire life has been nothing short of widening my circle of friends. I am sociable and above all I am philanthropic. I can say without a doubt that I have created a network of friends dating back to the time I was in high school up to now. This indicated just how far I have gone in terms of reaching out to my peers and every person I believe should come to Christ. Furthermore, I am courteous and I treat all people with utmost humility, I have donated the big percentage of my salary to help the needy and those who have been struck by calamities. I really put my all in everything I do including work because as a child, one the values that drove my family was hard work. Rarely did we just sit around doing nothing but instead we all worked hard and helped the family where we could; with house chores, tilling the family garden, watering the flowers and arranging the books.

Being a man of more than one culture, I have come to appreciate coexistence and tolerance irrespective of where one is coming from. In God’s eyes, we are all the same and no one is placed above the rest and that is what I believe in too. But I must also state that I do not discriminate people based on their faith. Just like I was born in a Christian family, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Buddhist and the Atheists was also born in these respective faiths. For that reason, I acknowledge that they did not have a prior opportunity to choose which faith systems they would subscribe to. In fact, my social circle is filled up with friends from all backgrounds and cultures. Luckily, I am a multilingual and I fluently speak English, Ibo, Mandarin, French and now Portuguese. This has enabled me to easily interact with so many people and communicate with most of them in their own language despite being an American. I have had a lot of encouragement from my parents to continue impacting the world through learning various cultures and socializing with people from all parts the world so that I can help in terms of telling them about the gospel of Christ as well as other worldviews.

In summary, the best way to describe who am I and who I am by saying that I am an ardent Seventh Day Adventist, a philanthropist, and a church member, I am very gregarious and a respecter of people’s culture, life, and their faith. Additionally, I appreciate life and humanity as well as the need to unite as children of the world to create social changes that go a long way in building another world where people live in harmony, poverty is a thing of the past and equality is prioritized. Given the fact that I am outspoken and social, I have never found it difficult to do a lot of things with others especially activities that are meant to uplift humanity. I enjoy life and draw a lot of valuable lessons from life and the people I interact with. I must state that this world needs open-minded people for it to be a home for all of us and that is who I am for those asking who am I.

A good who am I essay example is the one that addresses the key points earlier stated such as the informing reasons behind the essay, the purpose as well as the relationship between the article and the writers themselves. It is equally advisable that when writing an essay about who you are, you should strive to personalize as much as possible the content besides availing who am I essay examples.

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Home — Essay Samples — Life — Who Am I — Who Am I: Creative Writing

Who Am I: Creative Writing

Categories: About Myself Who Am I

About this sample

Words: 1040 |

Updated: 21 November, 2023

Words: 1040 | Pages: 2 | 6 min read

Prompt examples for the "who am i" essays, "who am i" essay examples.

Self-Reflection and Identity Explore the concept of self-reflection and the journey to discovering one's identity. How has self-awareness evolved throughout your life, and what factors have contributed to your understanding of who you are?
Emotions and Self-Perception Discuss your emotional landscape and its impact on your self-perception. How do you experience and express emotions? How do they shape your self-image and interactions with others?
Self-Esteem and Self-Obsession Examine the dynamics of self-esteem and self-obsession in your life. How has your self-esteem evolved over time, and how does it relate to your self-obsession or self-care? Share personal experiences that illustrate this evolution.
Social Interactions and Introversion Reflect on your social interactions and introverted tendencies. How do you navigate social situations, and what happens when you step out of your comfort zone? Discuss the balance between introversion and extroversion in your life.
Leadership and Taking Charge Describe your experiences with leadership and taking charge in various situations. How do you approach leadership roles, and what qualities make you effective in these roles? Share examples of when you've assumed leadership and its impact on those around you.

Who am I: Creative Essay

Works cited.

Akhtar, S., & Akhtar, F. (2016). A critical study of self-concept and self-esteem. Journal of Humanities and Social Science, 21(7), 15-22.
Benson, K. (2007). The power of personality types in career success. Journal of Employment Counseling, 44(3), 98-104.
Cassidy, S., & Eachus, P. (2002). Developing the computer user self-efficacy (CUSE) scale: Investigating the relationship between computer self-efficacy, gender and experience with computers. Journal of Educational Computing Research, 26(2), 133-153.
Costa, P. T., & McCrae, R. R. (1992). Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO-PI-R) and NEO Five-Factor Inventory (NEO-FFI) professional manual. Psychological Assessment Resources.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2008). Self-determination theory: A macrotheory of human motivation, development, and health. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 49(3), 182-185.
Friedman, H. S. (2010). Personality, disease, and self-healing: An integrative perspective. The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine, 16(1), 5-9.
Howard, L. W., & Ferris, G. R. (1996). The employment interview context: Social and situational influences on interviewer decisions. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(24), 2153-2174.
McAdams, D. P. (1993). The stories we live by: Personal myths and the making of the self. Guilford Press.
Swami, V. (2008). The influence of body weight on self-perceptions and partner preferences. Sex Roles, 58(9-10), 651-654.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D. (1974). Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Science, 185(4157), 1124-1131.

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Essay on Who Am I for Students and Children

500+ words essay on who am i.

In this world, many people surround us. Though we all apparently look similar, yet we all are unique in our own ways. The uniqueness gives us an identity. I am a teenage girl. I am like most teenage girls but I am also different from others. Those differences make me who I am.

I am a girl in mid-teenage. From childhood, I always loved to interact with people. I like to know people and make friends. I am a social person and go out with my friends and family. Also, I like to visit new places. Nature attracts me. Therefore, whenever I get the vacation I always insist on my friends and family for a getaway in nature’s lap.

Travelling gives me immense pleasure. I always capture beautiful moments and places in my camera. Whenever I am sad, I revisit my photo album to look at the beautiful places and moments. The thought of those happy moments and beautiful places makes me happy.

I am serious and disciplined about my studies and read many books other than my textbooks. Reading autobiographies and detective storybooks are what I like. I am involved in extra curriculum activities. I am learning music and love to sing.

Also, I listen to all genres of music but Hindustani classical , semi-classical, Bollywood songs are my favorite. Melodious songs are close to my heart. I always participate in musical and cultural events organized in my school. I also take part in the inter-school competition and have been a winner at an inter-school competition a couple of times. Those are cherishable and proud moments of my life.

Every person is a mix of good and bad qualities. I am not an early riser by nature. I understand that waking up early is very important to become productive. Still, during my holidays I take the liberty of waking up late.

I am an ambitious person and a dreamer. My dream is to become a teacher. I think a teacher is a big motivator and guide. I would like to motivate people and guide them to do good for society.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Me in several roles

While growing up I have realized that I am an individual but I play several roles throughout the day. As per these roles, my behavior and attitude keep altering. This variation adds various shades in my personality.

In my home firstly, I am a daughter. I try to listen and follow what my parents teach me. When I do well in studies, they become proud. Yet when I do not obey them, they scold me. I get lots of love, care and attention from my parents. I also care, love, and respect them. My parents are my first identity in this world.

Secondly, I am a sister. I have an elder brother. He takes care of me and guides to follow the path to success. My brother is also my friend. We spend quality time together playing, laughing at jokes together, and watching our favorite cartoon shows. The love, care, the fight makes a beautiful bond between us.

Thirdly, I am a student. Our teachers always try to guide us to realize our path of life. They want us to be sincere in studies and build a successful career . They also instill in us the values of a good human being. I try to be a sincere and obedient student and always do my homework and do well in studies. I also respect my teachers and am an obedient student. My teachers are patient and they always guide me to overcome my mistakes.

Fourthly, the role that we all love is that of a friend. I have many friends. I love moving out and spending time with my friends. We help each other in times of need. We live happy moments together. Friendship is very beautiful. I love to make my friends feel special, and never miss wishing them on their birthdays.

Conclusion

Life is full of experiences. Every moment we meet different people and face different situations. In this course of life, we not only get to know different people, but we also get to know ourselves in different ways.

As we grow, our likes dislike interest changes. Our perception and outlook toward life also change with time and experience. Thus, the search to the answer to the question of who I am is a lifelong process.

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How to Write a Who Am I Essay

Many students have challenges describing themselves in an academically sound manner. They mix their thoughts and don’t know how to order their thoughts correctly when writing a who am I essay. Others have difficulties choosing the information to include in their papers. This assignment’s purpose is to help you let your readers understand who you are and what you believe in.

Also, this paper shouldn’t necessarily focus on your positives. You may also highlight your weaknesses, provided you do this discreetly and creatively. For instance, you may talk about what angers you quickly. This post discusses professional life hacks for writing the best narrative essay about yourself. Read on to understand how to write a narrative essay that fetches the best grades.

Table of Contents

What Is a Who Am I Essay ?

Let’s start our discussion on a defining note. A who am I essay is an academic assignment you write for college, your bio, or yourself. When writing this paper for your autobiography or yourself, your project has no specific goal. Instead, it only analyzes yourself to show your audience who you are. Additionally, you don’t have to follow stringent academic rules and requirements, being able to write it whichever way you wish.

However, writing about yourself for work or college purposes differs. This essay can be a part of your job interview or college admission process. It allows your potential employer or admissions committee to examine your personality, tastes, and likes more closely. It convinces readers that you are the best person to take an employment or admission slot. Thus, write it to make the best impression you can about yourself.

Unlike other formal academic papers, a who am I essay allows you to use the first-person language. This assignment has different formats: narrative, philosophical, college application, and autobiographical.

Narrative Format

The who am I essay type focuses on providing your readers with your life story. The narrative can take various forms, like your personal or family encounters. The best strategy for drafting this paper is “showing” instead of merely telling your readers about yourself. This technique uses clear descriptions instead of rigid and formal informative statements. You may also utilize personal anecdotes to drive your points home.

College Application Format

The who am I essay format lets you write to a college’s or university’s admissions board. Here, you get a golden chance to convince the board you have everything the college wishes to see in a new student. You must supply all the necessary information that advances the college’s course. For instance, tell the committee about your personal qualities, academic achievements, work experience (if any), and future dreams.

Autobiographical Format

An autobiography essay format is a life story capturing your entire life. However, pay attention to how you include details in this paper because telling everything about your life in a short paper like this is impossible. Thus, summarize your life’s main events and experiences. This essay type requires excellent summarizing skills that can tell much using a few words.

Your main goal is to offer readers sufficient details to understand who you are. Some details to include in a who am I essay are your family lineage, demographical (race, ethnicity, sex, language, and nationality) background, academic qualifications, and professional achievements.

Philosophical Format

The who am I essay form engages your reader in a discovery manner because philosophy attempts to unravel life’s and nature’s mysteries. Therefore, some argue that this essay is more informative than a narrative essay type. Its investigative nature requires you to focus on telling your readers facts about yourself that advance your understanding of human nature.

Who Am I Essay Ideas

Having a sweet personality is great because it makes college boards and potential employers scramble for you. However, they won’t fight for you if they don’t know about you. This paper opens the door for college admissions committees and prospective employers who long to see you live. Here are tips and ideas to help you compose a compelling who am I essay.

Show your character

Your paper should clearly demonstrate your character traits. It must also show the habits that define you.

Share your values

Remember to include your value system. Your assignment must feature the things that motivate your behavior. Show readers your personal inspiration, principles, and beliefs. Inform your audience about your firm convictions but without going to radical extremes.

Prove your skills and potential

A perfect who am I essay must also highlight your personal skills and potential in different areas. Show the reader your aptitudes and each skill’s level. You may feature computer proficiency, educational levels, leadership skills, excellent communication skills, and problem-solving skills.

Besides, show your readers where all these abilities are taking you. Demonstrate how you intend to harness them to move to your dream future. Remember to show how these things contribute to the college community’s development. When writing to a prospective employer, mention how you can use your capabilities to improve the workplace and help the company grow.

Always remember that honesty is the best option. All hiring officers and college admissions board members are busy. They review thousands of cover letters and application essays. Therefore, never take them for kids who can’t discern lying applicants. Including exaggerated facts in your who am I essay will definitely backfire in your face. So, be honest as possible regardless of how you want to show your ambition and market yourself.

Don’t boast

Being confident of your skills and capabilities doesn’t mean you become boastful. Learn how to balance confidence with humility. Your desire to make a positive impression shouldn’t make you arrogant. Remember, your readers are adults who have read thousands of who am I essays for many years. Thus, they know how to detect and reject an empty braggart.

Be creative

Creativity should define your approach to a who am I essay. This task falls outside academic writing’s stringent rules that usually suppress creativity. It allows you to break most of the suppressing rules and unleash your creative genius. You aren’t obligated to cite anyone and can freely express your opinions about yourself without worrying about who agrees or disagrees with you.

Be a bit “cosmetic”

You must be as honest as possible. However, be a bit “cosmetic” where necessary. What does this mean? It would be best if you expressed your weaknesses without sounding helpless. Learn how to hide or smooth your shortcomings while highlighting your strengths.

Share your position

Admissions board members and hiring officers would like to know about your thinking processes. An excellent who am I essay doesn’t need extra references. So, don’t fear to assert yourself in this writing piece.

Share an interesting narrative

Know how to share a fascinating narrative that excites your audience but be selective about what to share and what to keep private. When you’re writing for your tutors, childhood memories and encounters would do good. However, they may not interest an admissions officer or hiring manager unless you were a genius child in something.

Share your passion

Lastly, be generous with writing about your personal passion. Clarify what fills you with positive energy. Let the reader know what turns on your world and unleashes your potential.

Who Am I Essay Outline

Your who am I essay needs an outline to hold your thoughts. It takes the following shape:

An Introduction Paragraph
A hook to attract and keep your reader’s attention and interest.
A short summary.
A thesis statement.
Body Paragraph 1
Body Paragraph 2
Body Paragraph 3
A Conclusion
It restates your thesis statement.
It summarizes your essay.

How to Start a Who Am I Essay

Starting a who am I essay is easy with the proper guidance. You only need to understand your assignment’s question. Next, determine the format you wish to use for presenting your ideas or marketing yourself. Afterward, choose the life experiences and the details you want your readers to know about you. Go ahead and formulate a thesis statement that holds together all the other ideas about you.

When composing this assignment, use first-person language and personal anecdotes to spice it up. You should also utilize vivid descriptions to let your essay show and not just tell your story. Ensure to write your paper to fit your assigned word count. Don’t exceed because you feel you have too much information to tell about yourself because your readers don’t have the time to read all of it.

Who Am I: Example of Essay

Nothing inspires you to write a better who am I essay more than a perfect example. Here is an excellent body paragraph sample to inspire your writing.

Friends are more than social relationships to me. They are concepts that define my worldview and relationship with the world. Since childhood, I have never been someone who likes social forums. The very thought of people dictating what I should do or say at any particular moment irritates me. For instance, I caused a violent commotion when a friend tried making me dance with a stranger at a birthday party. However, life is hard enough, and we cannot avoid social interactions. Therefore, I have a few introverted friends willing to push themselves to the edge. Consequently, they always devise plans to take ourselves outdoors to interact with other humans.

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Who Am I Essay : How to Write it?

Home / Blog / Who Am I Essay : How To Write It?

Introduction

Writing a ‘who am I’ essay is indeed a difficult task. We often dig into our heads and souls to look for an answer to “who am I.” Most of us have faith that every action and feelings have a logical explanation. Also, we think that every habit has its own root. Somewhere in our subconscious, we have a feeling that we are doing everything right. Therefore, writing a flawless and unbiased ‘Who am I’ essay is almost impossible.

Hence, when you plan to write a ‘Who am I’ essay, you need to figure out certain things and find out how can you be unbiased. It is compulsory, especially when you need to regulate your thoughts and decide how to move ahead with the write-up and establish who you are.

Why do you need to write a ‘Who am I’ essay?

You can be assigned with the task of writing a ‘Who am I’ essay at any point of your academic career. You may need to write an essay for your job, bio or college application essay. When you write an essay for yourself, it will be about self-analysis. There is no purpose or concrete rules and regulations for writing the essay. However, you need to be focused and decide how to craft the essay and make sure it precise.

In case of a college application essay or bio-data, everything is a bit more complicated. Your essay has to be convincing enough so that the admission committee understands your expertise.

To impress the supervisor or the job interviewer, you need to follow the guidelines of writing an essay on the topic ‘Who am I’. Read on to know how you can write an essay with a proper self-analysis so that you can impress your supervisors.

5 simple ways to analyse yourself

As you know that a ‘who am I’ essay is all about self-analysis. Thus, before writing the essay, it is important to know the ways of self-analysis. It is not a very easy task. Read on to know the 5 effective steps of self-analysis.

Assess your self-esteem : Before analysing yourself, you need to find out and realise your self-esteem. When you try to understand your self-esteem, it becomes easier for writing.
you to understand who you are. While realizing yourself, you will slowly understand that much of what drives behavior and self-perception is the result of subconscious attitudes and beliefs. You need to figure out your perspective like how you see yourself. Unless you realize your value, you cannot analyse yourself.
Understand your personality : To understand your personality, you need to find out the category that you fall in. There are 5 traits of personality, namely “Extraversion, neuroticism”, "Conscientiousness," "Agreeableness," and "Openness to Experience.”. These 5 personality traits reflect the general component of your character. You need to take a minute to find out which category you fall into. When you understand the personality trait, it will be easier for you to express who you are.

Figure 1: Personality Traits that You Must Know

Evaluate your thinking pattern : It is very important to evaluate your thinking pattern when you want to do a self-analysis. Evaluating how you think and express is very important to judge your characteristics. When you know your thinking pattern, you can easily understand your shortcomings and work on them accordingly.
Focus on your life goals : When you need to write an essay on ‘Who am I’, you should be focused on your goals. Your life goals will help you to understand who you are. This is essential for self-analysis. Use your essay to explain your goals and write why you set such goals in your life.
Analyse your achievements : To do a self-analysis, it is important for you to analyse your achievements. This will help you to express yourself in a better way. Your achievements are the biggest strength, and these are the best source for self-analysis.

Once you are done with the self-analysis, you can easily write an essay on the topic ‘Who am I’. Follow the tips discussed below to make your paper flawless.

6 best ways to write a brilliant ‘Who am I?’ essay

You have to believe that your personality is outstanding and you are the most deserving candidate. To make the admission committee agree to your opinion, you need to make your ‘Who am I’ essay brilliant to the extent that the committee doesn’t give a second thought before choosing you. Here are some of the amazing ideas to write a brilliant essay.

Be yourself: The first criterion of a fabulous ‘who am I’ essay is to be honest. Always remember that if you provide fake information about yourself in the essay, it can be the biggest turn-off. You should be honest and provide original information only.
Be particular about your passion: When you have to write an essay about yourself, how can you forget to write about your passion? When you write about something you love, it automatically elevates the quality of your essay. You can add your experience and feelings in the essay so that your application essay reflects your passion.
Give importance to stories: When you draft an essay on the topic ‘Who am I,’ you need to make it interesting to your audience. Sharing personal and interesting stories is a great idea. When you do that, you never have to think about impressing your supervisor.
Explore your creativity: When you need to write about yourself, you can forget about the rules. ‘Who am I’ essays are not academic essays to be exact. Thus, there is no need to maintain any format. You can switch on your creativity and express your opinion. You can be ‘YOU’ by using creativity to write the assignment.
Don’t take to boasting: You need to remind yourself that nobody likes upstarts. You need to demonstrate your qualities and achievements to make a good impression. You should not boast about yourself to the extent that you sound arrogant. Readers should understand that your achievement is the result of your hard work.
Focus on your potential: Use your essay to highlight your potential. The admission committee should know what you are good at. You should also mention about your future plans and explain how studying in the college is important to you.

These are some of the unique steps to write an essay on self-analysis. Are you looking for a sample essay? Here is an example of a ‘who am I?’ essay.

Sample of a ‘Who am I?’ essay

Who am I? I am yet to know

I have never given much thought to who I am. People say I am an extrovert. However, those who don’t know me will always think I am shy and reserved. My friends have a different opinion altogether. According to my friends, I am very talkative and outspoken.

I was a problem child in my school. My mother says I have always given her sleepless nights because I stayed awake in the hours of the night. I never loved to study and I was a very poor performer. I always wanted to be a singer and a composer.

My passion was music and I sang all day long. My father thought I would fail in exams. I never failed in my exams, but my world was different from others. I inherited my granddad’s love for singing. He was my best friend. He used to gift me albums of Bob Dylan and John Lenon when I was very young.

I love music more than anything in the world. I listen to every form of music, starting from Pop to Jazz. Taylor Swift is my all time favourite. I wanted to be a successful singer like her. My biggest fear is not achieving my dream. I went on to believe that I would not make it as a successful singer and my passion will be unfulfilled.

Little did I know that one always needs a friend, philosopher and guide who can make you realise that you have the potential.

One day, when I was humming a tune, my best friend listened to it and said that I have the potential to be a singer. He was my inspiration and always encouraged me to take up singing as my profession.

Presently, I am following my passion and I have joined music classes. Along with that, I am also learning to play acoustic guitar. I aim to be a singer one day. Now, I aspire to be a part of Leeds College of Music so that I can fulfil my dream of becoming a singer and music composer one day.

If I have to answer the question ‘Who am I,’ my answer would be that I want to be a passionate musician. Music is in my soul and I can never stop singing until my last breath. I hope I will accomplish my ambition and establish myself as a great singer.

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17.3: Starting the "Who I Am" Story

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Your Who I Am story should start to answer the question “who are you?” However, this story should only focus on one characteristic or aspect of your personality. Think back to Skip and the Who I Am story from the beginning of this chapter. His story helped prove he was ready to be a leader and ready to run a corporation.

As with most other types of writing, brainstorming can be a useful tool. To begin, you might just think about all the ways to finish the sentence “I am . . .” The word you choose to finish this sentence then becomes the subject of your Who I Am story. If a subject is not jumping out at you, think about the way your mother, best friend, significant other, or pet might describe you. Think about a characteristic that only the people closest to you see—for example, has anyone ever told you “when I first met you, I never would have guessed that you were so funny (or competitive or happy)”?

Once you have a characteristic in mind, keep brainstorming and think of one specific example or event that illustrates this characteristic. This example will become your story. Again, much like a topic, sometimes an example, or story, will just jump to mind. However, if you cannot think of an example right away, look through some old pictures, scrapbooks, or yearbooks. Reread journals or listen to favorite songs. All of these things can spark memories, and one of these memories can become the example or event on which your Who I Am story will focus. This event does not have to be exciting or flamboyant. Simple but heartfelt stories often are the most effective. Many things can be faked in life, but sincerity is generally not one of them.

Writing the “Who I Am” Story

Once you have the topic, just start writing. Writing a story is not like baking a cake—there is no formula or recipe that guarantees a perfect story. But here are some steps to consider:

1. Ask some questions about the event you are going to write about.

When did this event take place? What are the starting and ending points? Where did this event take place? Who was there? Was there a conflict? A resolution?

2. Write down everything you remember.

Of course, there are numerous ways to write a first draft, but for a Who I Am story, simply writing down everything you remember about the event is a good place to start. Usually, it is better to have more writing than what you need. So start by writing everything down in chronological order. Do not worry about any rhetorical strategies or making it sound good. Think about the concept of fabula and just write down the entire series of events or actions.

3. Go do something else.

Once you have the entire story written down, set it aside. Go take a nap or play with your dog, and come back to the story later. Then reread it and see if you left anything out. Time permitting, go through this process of putting the story aside and then rereading it several times.

4. Summarize the main point of the story in one or two sentences.

Go through the story and eliminate everything that does not relate to this main point. Do not worry about length right now. Focus on quality and creating a unified story.

5. Think about creating a dominant impression.

Is the story sad, thoughtful, sarcastic, or humorous? If you have trouble deciding on a dominant impression, think about setting the story to music. What song would you pick—Mozart’s “Moonlight Sonata,” something by the Violent Femmes, a sultry jazz tune—and what emotion does this song conjure up?

6. Keeping the main point and dominant impression in mind, add details and expand the most important parts of your story.

Real time should now become narrative time. Add concrete details and imagery. Imagine the different senses to which the story could appeal. We are a very visual culture, but go beyond describing what things look like—consider incorporating smells or sounds. Think about the way something feels when touched. Also think about how these details can help draw a reader in. Consider this an example from a student’s Who I Am story:

At the beginning of every school year, I am obligated to introduce myself to a new sea of adolescent hormones swimming with impulsiveness, curiosity, and unfiltered tourette-like verbal ejaculations. Sure, I could stand before the little urchins, and with trident in hand, I could dictate the rules of my class and cast off a long list of life experiences that made me the immortal that stands before them or I could let them place their expectations upon me creating an environment of perceived equality. Being a believer in a democratic classroom, I always opt for the latter.

Look at the way this student builds on the details: the words “sea,” “swimming” and “trident” work beautifully together. And look at the choices the student made: using the words “adolescent hormones” and “urchins” instead of students; “unfiltered tourette-like verbal ejaculations” could have simply been opinions or obnoxious comments. The story includes a lot of visual elements, but the phrase “verbal ejaculations” also appeals to the ears. These words, phrases, and ideas all work together to, as clich.d as it sounds, paint a picture of the author of this story.

The author of this story is a student, but she is also a middle-school teacher. The main point of the story is to show who she is as a teacher. Everything in this paragraph relates to that main point. We do not know the color of her hair, whether she is wearing a shirt or a sweater, or if she is tall or short. After all, none of these things relate to the point of this story. Great detail and description and emotions are very important to the Who I Am story. But they need to be the right details, descriptions, and emotions, and they need to be used at the right time.

8. Make certain the story shows and does not tell.

The ultimate success of the Who I Am story depends on how well you show, not tell, who you are (i.e. use more indirect characterization than direct characterization). Have faith in your words and in the story you are telling. Trust that the story works and do not end the story with a statement like “clearly this event shows that I am a trustworthy person.” Let the story do its job. Consider two more paragraphs from our middle-school teacher’s story:

On the first day of class last year, I allowed students to take seats at their leisure. I sat on my desk and when everyone was settled, I quietly commanded their attention by placing a large black top hat upon my head. Conversations abruptly stopped as my curious audience took notice. ‘If I were to say that hats are a metaphor for the different roles we play in our lives, what do you think that means?’ I was met with blank stares. ‘What if I said that I play many roles every day? I am a teacher, a mother, a daughter, a coworker, and a friend. Are the expectations for those different roles the same or different?’ A hand raises and a girl with pale skin, lively eyes and thick auburn hair answers, 'Of course they’re different. I don’t act the same around my friends as I do in front of my parents!’ She has a smug ‘as if’ expression.

‘You’re absolutely right,’ I acknowledge. ‘Now what if I were to ask you to define the expectations of my role as your teacher?’ Eyebrows rise as the class considers this. ‘I’m going to pass out sticky notes and I want each of you to write down a word or phrase that describes what my job is as your teacher. When you are done, I want you to place your note on the strip of blue paper that runs up the wall in the back of the room. Each of you should place your note above the note of the person that went before you so that we create a column of sticky notes. Does everyone understand?’ A thin-faced, black boy with large eyes and bright teeth pipes up, “So we get to tell you how to do your job?’ I thoughtfully pause before answering, ‘Well . . . yah!’

What do we learn about the author from reading this passage? What kind of teacher is she? We could describe her as creative, brave, caring, and dedicated. We could decide that she is not afraid to take some risks. We know that she loves her job. Does she directly state any of these things? No. But her story shows that she is all of these things.

9. Look at the introduction of your story.

Will it grab a reader’s attention? Think about sitting in a doctor’s office or waiting for your car to be repaired. You pick up a magazine and start to thumb through it. How long do you give an article to grab your attention before turning the page? Some people flip to the next page if the title of the article does not interest them; other more generous readers will read the first sentence or two before deciding to continue reading or to move on to the next page. Something in the opening paragraph, hopefully in the first sentence or two, should grab the reader and make him or her want to read on. Here is an example from another student’s Who I Am story:

I thought by the time I was thirty I would know what I wanted to be when I grew up. But here I am on the eve of my thirty-first birthday, and I am still searching, searching for where I fit into the world, amidst all the titles I have been given such as Sydney’s Mom, Tripp’s Wife, and Janice’s Daughter. Then there are all the roles I play: maid, chef, bookkeeper, personal shopper, and teacher. Of course that’s just what I do and who I do it for. The real question remains, when you take all of that away, who am I?

This is the first paragraph of the student’s Who I Am essay, and it does several things nicely. The conversational tone draws us in. We almost feel as if we are getting to peek inside the author’s head. “Tripp’s Wife,” “Janice’s Daughter,” “chef,” “personal shopper” are lovely specifics, and equally important, these are specifics to which most peoplecan relate. Perhaps we are Bob’s son or Suzie’s boyfriend instead of a daughter or a wife, but we can still see the similarities between the author’s life and our own. And because of that, we want to know how she answers the question “who am I?”

10. Treat this story like any other paper.

Have a solid organizational scheme (chronological often works well), keep one main idea per paragraph, use transitional phrasing, vary the sentence structure, and make sure the ideas flow into each other. Reflect on word choice and particularly verb choices. Just think, for example, of all the different synonyms for the word walk. A character could strut, saunter, stroll, sashay, or skip. She could mosey, meander, or march. Powerful verbs are a great way to add panache and detail to a story without making it wordy or slowing the pace.

11. Proofread, edit, and proofread again.

Give the story to a friend and ask them to read it. Do not tell them what the paper is about or what you are trying to accomplish. Instead just ask them what they learned or what three words they would use to describe your story.

12. And the last bit of advice—have fun.

The best storytellers enjoy telling stories. When you are telling a story, pick a story that matters to you and a story that you really want to share. Let your love for that story come through, and let others see you through your story.

Essay Sample: Who Am I?

26 March, 2020

7 minutes read

Author: Richard Pircher

This essay sample is written by Handmadewriting staff as an example of a reflective essay. It will demonstrate how to craft such an essay step by step on a simple yet popular topic.

The question of who am I seems to be the simplest question one can answer. Yet, when I took the time to try and figure out Who am I, I found this question is the one that requires critical thinking. In general, the answer to this question is that I am a regular person who loves spending quality time with the people I appreciate. In addition, I dedicate myself to completing my duties, and I have a dream of becoming a great person. However, there are so many other things that make me a person. I always try to use every opportunity to have more free time for my hobbies.

For one to be a great person in life, it is critical that they ask themselves this question, especially given that it is a question that helps a person be in a position of evaluating themselves. Overall, the question of who am I is possible to give an answer by categorizing the general characteristics of an individual’s life into three divisions. The three categories are spiritual, personal traits and how I perceive life and the society around me.

Me as a Spiritual Identity

In terms of the spiritual division, I would consider myself as a relatively spiritual person basing on the life that I have been nurtured through. The matter is that all my life, I have been raised up by parents who are staunch Christians and who have taught me the importance of leading a spiritual life. When I was young, I could describe my life to be majorly guarded by religion since what I remembered most of the time is going to church, singing gospel songs and praying.

Whenever I was in trouble, I never thought of any other solution rather than to pray to God for help. For example, I was taught in my early life that God was the solution and provider of everything that mankind ever needed. As a result, I have lived to believe this up to now. Moreover, I can also attest that it’s through religion that all my morals are based. Nonetheless, it will be a lie if I say that I still hold spirituality dear as I used to when I was growing up. And to be honest, it’s dismal for me to admit it.

As one grows and discovers many things around the world, especially during the teenage period, we start questioning the very ideals we were taught, and in my case, spirituality. In other words, my high school moments changed me a lot. Though I eased on the issue of divinities, I still try to hold spirituality dear to me, and I can confirm that I am more independent in making spiritual decisions compared to when I was young. This is due to the shifts and turns that have taken place in my life since I was young. From my religious journey, I deemed it important to learn other religious views in order to be familiar with some of them. I strongly believe that it is very wrong to spread rivalry among religions.

Furthermore, I feel like we all have the right to worship in any dominion or religion we consider to be the closest to heart and soul. Through my study of different religions, I have become a person who loves and always supports diversity in different sectors.

Me as Personality

Regarding my personality, I think that I am a very friendly person deducing from how I relate to my peers, children and older people. Personally I like being optimistic, and I like talking about positive things in life since I believe that people have the capacity to do great things as long as they believe in themselves. Among other things, I am slow at judging people on the decisions that they make. Besides, I like treating people equally since I believe everyone has the right to be perceived so. But still it this does not mean that I am a very indulgent and naive person.

When I am wrong, I become angry, just like anyone does, and there are moments whereby I find it hard to manage my anger. Therefore, I can assert that this is the greatest challenge that I am facing. That’s why I am doing my best to learn how to make rational decisions when I am angry. I have healthy self-esteem, I am confident, and I do not easily shy away from talking to people either individually or in a group. Generally, I can say that I am a kind and loving person – someone who always advocates for the right things to be done in society.

Me as an Insightful Person

Lastly, speaking of my perception about the world and the society around me, I think that I am an open-minded individual who believes that the world is a good place to live in, only it has been destroyed by people. Therefore, it is our call as human beings to do out best and make contributions to turn the world into a much better place. I believe that change starts with an individual, but many people are afraid of this change. When evaluating the society I am living in, I believe that its imperfections is a result of human acts. Hence, a solution to the faults within the contemporary society can be implemented by teaching children to become people of integrity when they grow up. All in all, everything of the above mentioned is me – it is what I stand for.

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Writing My Autobiography

A re you still writing?” he asked.

“I am,” I answered.

“What are you working on at the moment?”

“An autobiography,” I said.

“Interesting,” he replied. “Whose?”

The implication here, you will note, is that mine hasn’t been a life sufficiently interesting to merit an autobiography. The implication isn’t altogether foolish. Most autobiographies, at least the best autobiographies, have been written by people who have historical standing, or have known many important people, or have lived in significant times, or have noteworthy family connections or serious lessons to convey . I qualify on none of these grounds. Not that, roughly two years ago when I sat down to write my autobiography, I let that stop me.

An autobiography, to state the obvious, is at base a biography written by its own subject. But how is one to write it: as a matter of setting the record straight, as a form of confessional, as a mode of seeking justice, or as a justification of one’s life? “An autobiography,” wrote George Orwell, “is only to be trusted when it reveals something disgraceful. A man who gives a good account of himself is probably lying, since any life when viewed from the inside is simply a series of defeats.” Is this true? I prefer to think not.

Autobiography is a complex enterprise, calling for its author not only to know himself but to be honest in conveying that knowledge. “I could inform the dullest author how he might write an interesting book,” wrote Samuel Taylor Coleridge. “Let him relate the events of his own life with Honesty, not disguising the feelings that accompanied them.” One of the nicest things about being a professor, it has been said, is that one gets to talk for fifty minutes without being interrupted. So one of the allurements of autobiography is that one gets to write hundreds of pages about that eminently fascinating character, oneself, even if in doing so one only establishes one’s insignificance.

The great autobiographies—of which there have not been all that many—have been wildly various. One of the first, that of the Renaissance sculptor Benvenuto Cellini, is marked by an almost unrelieved braggadocio: No artist was more perfect, no warrior more brave, no lover more pleasing than the author, or so he would have us believe. Edward Gibbon’s autobiography, though elegantly written, is disappointing in its brevity. That of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, heavily striking the confessional note, might have been told in a booth to a priest. Ben Franklin’s autobiography is full of advice on how the rest of us should live. John Stuart Mill’s is astounding in its account of its author’s prodigiously early education, which began with his learning Greek under his father’s instruction at the age of three. Then there is Henry Adams’s autobiography, suffused with disappointment over his feeling out of joint with his times and the world’s not recognizing his true value. In Making It , Norman Podhoretz wrote an autobiography informed by a single message, which he termed a “dirty little secret,” namely that there is nothing wrong with ambition and that success, despite what leftist intellectuals might claim, is nothing to be ashamed of.

Please note that all of these are books written by men. Might it be that women lack the vanity required to write—or should I say “indulge in”—the literary act of autobiography? In Mary Beard’s Emperor of Rome , I recently read that Agrippina the Younger, the mother of Nero, wrote her autobiography, which has not survived, and which Mary Beard counts as “one of the great losses of all classical literature.” I wish that Jane Austen had written an autobiography, and so too George Eliot and Willa Cather. Perhaps these three women, great writers all, were too sensibly modest for autobiography, that least modest of all literary forms.

A utobiography can be the making or breaking of writers who attempt it. John Stuart Mill’s autobiography has gone a long way toward humanizing a writer whose other writings tend toward the coldly formal. Harold Laski wrote that Mill’s “ Autobiography , in the end the most imperishable of his writings, is a record as noble as any in our literature of consistent devotion to the public good.”

If Mill’s autobiography humanized him, the autobiography of the novelist Anthony Trollope did for him something approaching the reverse. In An Autobiography , Trollope disdains the notion of an author’s needing inspiration to write well. He reports that “there was no day on which it was my positive duty to write for the publishers, as it was my duty to write reports for the Post Office,” where he had a regular job. “I was free to be idle if I pleased. But as I had made up my mind to undertake this second profession [that of novelist], I found it to be expedient to bind myself by certain self-imposed laws.” Trollope recounts—emphasis here on “counts”—that as a novelist he averages forty pages per week, at 250 words per page. He writes: “There are those who would be ashamed to subject themselves to such a taskmaster, and who think that the man who works with his imagination should allow himself to wait till inspiration moves him. When I have heard such doctrine preached, I have hardly been able to repress my scorn.” Trollope then mentions that on the day after he finished his novel Doctor Thorne , he began writing his next novel, The Bertrams . For a long spell the literati refused to forgive Trollope for shearing inspiration away from the creation of literary art, for comparing the job of the novelist to a job at the post office. Only the splendid quality of his many novels eventually won him forgiveness and proper recognition.

A serious biography takes up what the world thinks of its subject, what his friends and family think of him, and—if the information is available in letters, diaries, journals, or interviews—what he thinks of himself. An autobiography is ultimately about the last question: what the author thinks of himself. Yet how many of us have sufficient self-knowledge to give a convincing answer? In her splendid novel Memoirs of Hadrian , Marguerite Yourcenar has Hadrian note: “When I seek deep within me for knowledge of myself what I find is obscure, internal, unformulated, and as secret as any complicity.” The unexamined life may not be worth living, but the scrupulously examined one is rare indeed.

My own life has not provided the richest fodder for autobiography. For one thing, it has not featured much in the way of drama. For another, good fortune has allowed me the freedom to do with my life much as I have wished. I have given my autobiography the title Never Say You’ve Had a Lucky Life , with the subtitle Especially If You’ve Had a Lucky Life . Now well along in its closing chapter, mine, I contend, has been thus far—here I pause to touch wood—a most lucky life.

My title derives from the story of Croesus, who ruled the country of Lydia from circa 585–547 b.c. , and who is perhaps today best known for the phrase “rich as Croesus.” The vastly wealthy Croesus thought himself the luckiest man on earth and asked confirmation of this from Solon, the wise Athenian, who told him that in fact the luckiest man on earth was another Athenian who had two sons in that year’s Olympics. When Croesus asked who was second luckiest, Solon cited another Greek who had a most happy family life. Croesus was displeased but not convinced by Solon’s answers. Years later he was captured by the Persian Cyrus, divested of his kingdom and his wealth, and set on a pyre to be burned alive, before which he was heard to exclaim that Solon had been right. The moral of the story is, of course: Never say you have had a lucky life until you know how your life ends.

I have known serious sadness in my life. I have undergone a divorce. I have become a member of that most dolorous of clubs, parents who have buried one of their children. Yet I have had much to be grateful for. In the final paragraph of a book I wrote some years ago on the subject of ambition, I noted that “We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, or the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing.” In all these realms, I lucked out. I was born to intelligent, kindly parents; at a time that, though I was drafted into the army, allowed me to miss being called up to fight in any wars; and in the largely unmitigated prosperity enjoyed by the world’s most interesting country, the United States of America.

Writing is a form of discovery. Yet can even writing ferret out the quality and meaning of one’s own life? Alexis de Tocqueville, the endlessly quotable Tocqueville, wrote: “The fate of individuals is still more hidden than that of peoples,” and “the destinies of individuals are often as uncertain as those of nations.” Fate, destiny, those two great tricksters, who knows what they have in store for one, even in the final days of one’s life? I, for example, as late as the age of eighteen, had never heard the word “intellectual.” If you had asked me what a man of letters was, I would have said a guy who works at the post office. Yet I have been destined to function as an intellectual for the better part of my adult life, and have more than once been called a man of letters. Fate, destiny, go figure!

T he first question that arises in writing one’s autobiography is what to include and what to exclude. Take, for starters, sex. In his nearly seven-hundred-page autobiography, Journeys of the Mind , the historian of late antiquity Peter Brown waits until page 581 to mention, in the most glancing way, that he is married. Forty or so pages later, the name of a second wife is mentioned. Whether he had children with either of these wives, we never learn. But then, Brown’s is a purely intellectual autobiography, concerned all but exclusively with the development of the author’s mind and those who influenced that development.

My autobiography, though less than half the length of Brown’s, allowed no such luxury of reticence. Sex, especially when I was an adolescent, was a central subject, close to a preoccupation. After all, boys—as I frequently instructed my beautiful granddaughter Annabelle when she was growing up—are brutes. I came of age BP, or Before the Pill, and consummated sex, known in that day as “going all the way,” was not then a serious possibility. Too much was at risk—pregnancy, loss of reputation—for middle-class girls. My friends and I turned to prostitution.

Apart from occasionally picking up streetwalkers on some of Chicago’s darker streets, prostitution for the most part meant trips of sixty or so miles to the bordellos of Braidwood or Kankakee, Illinois. The sex, costing $3, was less than perfunctory. (“Don’t bother to take off your socks or that sweater,” one was instructed.) What was entailed was less sensual pleasure than a rite of passage, of becoming a man, of “losing your cherry,” a phrase I have only recently learned means forgoing one’s innocence. We usually went on these trips in groups of five or six in one or another of our fathers’ cars. Much joking on the way up and even more on the way back. Along Chicago’s Outer Drive, which we took home in those days, there was a Dad’s Old Fashioned Root Beer sign that read, “Have you had it lately?,” which always got a good laugh.

I like to think of myself as a shy pornographer, or, perhaps better, a sly pornographer. By this I mean that in my fiction and where necessary in my essays I do not shy away from the subject of sex, only from the need to describe it in any of its lurid details. So I have done in my autobiography. On the subject of sex in my first marriage (of two), for example, I say merely, “I did not want my money back.” But, then, all sex, if one comes to think about it, is essentially comic, except of course one’s own.

On the inclusion-exclusion question, the next subject I had to consider was money, or my personal finances. Financially I have nothing to brag about. In my autobiography I do, though, occasionally give the exact salaries—none of them spectacular—of the jobs I’ve held. With some hesitation (lest it seem boasting) I mention that a book I wrote on the subject of snobbery earned, with its paperback sale, roughly half-a-million dollars. I fail to mention those of my books that earned paltry royalties, or, as I came to think of them, peasantries. In my autobiography, I contented myself with noting my good fortune in being able to earn enough money doing pretty much what I wished to do and ending up having acquired enough money not to worry overmuch about financial matters. Like the man said, a lucky life.

If I deal glancingly in my autobiography with sex and personal finances, I tried to take a pass on politics. My own political development is of little interest. I started out in my political life a fairly standard liberal—which in those days meant despising Richard Nixon—and have ended up today contemptuous of both our political parties: Tweedledum and Tweedledumber, as the critic Dwight Macdonald referred to them. Forgive the self-congratulatory note, but in politics I prefer to think myself a member in good standing of that third American political party, never alas on the ballot, the anti-BS party.

Of course, sometimes one needs to have a politics, if only to fight off the politics of others. Ours is a time when politics seems to be swamping all else: art, education, journalism, culture generally. I have had the dubious distinction of having been “canceled,” for what were thought my political views, and I write about this experience in my autobiography. I was fired from the editorship of Phi Beta Kappa’s quarterly magazine, the American Scholar —a job I had held for more than twenty years—because of my ostensibly conservative, I suppose I ought to make that “right-wing,” politics. My chief cancellers were two academic feminists and an African-American historian-biographer, who sat on the senate, or governing board, of Phi Beta Kappa.

T he official version given out by Phi Beta Kappa for my cancellation—in those days still known as a firing—was that the magazine was losing subscribers and needed to seek younger readers. Neither assertion was true, but both currently appear in the Wikipedia entry under my name. The New York Times also printed this “official” but untrue version of my cancellation. In fact, I was canceled because I had failed to run anything in the magazine about academic feminism or race, both subjects that had already been done to death elsewhere and that I thought cliché-ridden and hence of little interest for a magazine I specifically tried to keep apolitical. During my twenty-two years at the American Scholar , the name of no current United States president was mentioned. If anything resembling a theme emerged during my editorship, it was the preservation of the tradition of the liberal arts, a subject on which I was able to acquire contributions from Jacques Barzun, Paul Kristeller, Hugh Trevor-Roper, Frederick Crews, and others.

That I was fired not for anything I had done but for things I had failed to do is an indication of how far we had come in the realm of political correctness. I take up this topic in my autobiography, one theme of which is the vast changes that have taken place in American culture over my lifetime. A notable example is an essay on homosexuality that I wrote and published in Harper’s in 1970, a mere fifty-three years ago. The essay made the points that we still did not know much about the origin of male homosexuality, that there was much hypocrisy concerning the subject, that homosexuals were living under considerable social pressure and prejudice, and that given a choice, most people would prefer that their children not be homosexual. This, as I say, was in 1970, before the gay liberation movement had got underway in earnest. The essay attracted a vast number of letters in opposition, and a man named Merle Miller, who claimed I was calling for genocide of homosexuals, wrote a book based on the essay. Gore Vidal, never known for his temperate reasoning, claimed my argument was ad Hitlerum . (Vidal, after contracting Epstein-Barr virus late in life, claimed that “Joseph Epstein gave it to me.”) I have never reprinted the essay in any of my collections because I felt that it would stir up too much strong feeling. For what it is worth, I also happen to be pleased by the greater tolerance accorded homosexuality in the half century since my essay was published.

The larger point is that today neither Harper’s nor any other mainstream magazine would dare to publish that essay. Yet a few years after the essay was published, I was offered a job teaching in the English Department of Northwestern University, and the year after that, I was appointed editor of the American Scholar. Today, of course, neither job would have been available to me.

Do these matters—my cancellation from the American Scholar , my unearned reputation as a homophobe—come under the heading of self-justification? Perhaps so. But then, what better, or at least more convenient, place to attempt to justify oneself than in one’s autobiography?

Many changes have taken place in my lifetime, some for the better, some for the worse, some whose value cannot yet be known. I note, for example, if not the death then the attenuation of the extended family (nephews, nieces, cousins) in American life. Whereas much of my parents’ social life revolved around an extensive cousinage, I today have grandnephews and grandnieces living on both coasts whom I have never met and probably never shall. I imagine some of them one day being notified of my death and responding, “Really? [Pause] What’s for dinner?”

I take up in my autobiography what Philip Rieff called, in his book of this title, the Triumph of the Therapeutic, a development that has altered child-rearing, artistic creation, and much else in our culture. Although the doctrines of Sigmund Freud, Carl Jung, and others are no longer taken as gospel, their secondary influence has conquered much of modern culture. My parents’ generation did not hold with therapeutic culture, which contends that the essentials of life are the achievement of self-esteem and individual happiness, replacing honor, courage, kindness, and generosity.

In my autobiography, I note that when my mother was depressed by her knowledge that she was dying of cancer, a friend suggested that there were support groups for people with terminal diseases, one of which might be helpful. I imagined telling my mother about such groups, and her response: “Let me see,” she is likely to have said. “You want me to go into a room with strangers, where I will listen to their problems and then I’ll tell them mine, and this will make me feel better.” Pause. “Is this the kind of idiot I’ve raised as a son?”

T hen there is digital culture, the verdict on which is not yet in. Digital culture has changed the way we read, think, make social connections, do business, and so much more. I write in my autobiography that in its consequences digital culture is up there with the printing press and the automobile. Its influence is still far from fully fathomed.

One of my challenges in writing my autobiography was to avoid seeming to brag about my quite modest accomplishments. In the Rhetoric , Aristotle writes: “Speaking at length about oneself, making false claims, taking the credit for what another has done, these are signs of boastfulness.” I tried not to lapse into boasting. Yet at one point I quote Jacques Barzun, in a letter to me, claiming that as a writer I am in the direct line of William Hazlitt, though in some ways better, for my task—that of finding the proper language to establish both intimacy and critical distance—is in the current day more difficult than in Hazlitt’s. At least I deliberately neglected to mention that, in response to my being fired from the American Scholar, Daniel Patrick Moynihan flew an American flag at half-mast over the Capitol, a flag he sent to me as a souvenir. Quoting others about my accomplishments, is this anything other than boasting by other means? I hope so, though even now I’m not altogether sure.

I have a certain pride in these modest accomplishments. Setting out in life, I never thought I should publish some thirty-odd books or have the good luck to continue writing well into my eighties. The question for me as an autobiographer was how to express that pride without preening. The most efficient way, of course, is never to write an autobiography.

Why, then, did I write mine? Although I have earlier characterized writing as a form of discovery, I did not, in writing my autobiography, expect to discover many radically new things about my character or the general lineaments of my life. Nor did I think that my life bore any lessons that were important to others. I had, and still have, little to confess; I have no hidden desire to be spanked by an NFL linebacker in a nun’s habit. A writer, a mere scribbler, I have led a largely spectatorial life, standing on the sidelines, glass of wine in hand, watching the circus pass before me.

Still, I wrote my autobiography, based in a loose way on Wordsworth’s notion that poetry arises from “emotion recollected in tranquility.” Writing it gave me an opportunity to review my life at the end of my life in a tranquil manner. I was able to note certain trends, parallels, and phenomena that have marked my life and set my destiny.

The first of these, as I remarked earlier, was the fortunate time in which I was born, namely the tail end of the Great Depression—to be specific, in 1937. Because of the Depression, people were having fewer children, and often having them later. (My mother was twenty-seven, my father thirty at my birth.) Born when it was, my generation, though subject to the draft—not, in my experience of it, a bad thing—danced between the wars: We were too young for Korea, too old for Vietnam. We were also children during World War II, the last war the country fully supported, which gave us a love of our country. Ours was a low-population generation, untroubled by the vagaries of college admissions or the trauma of rejection by the school of one’s choice. Colleges, in fact, wanted us.

Or consider parents, another fateful phenomenon over which one has no choice. To be born to thoughtless, or disagreeable, or depressed, or deeply neurotic parents cannot but substantially affect all one’s days. Having a father who is hugely successful in the world can be as dampening to the spirit as having a father who is a failure. And yet about all this one has no say. I have given the chapter on my parents the title “A Winning Ticket in the Parents Lottery,” for my own parents, though neither went to college, were thoughtful, honorable, and in no way psychologically crushing. They gave my younger brother and me the freedom to develop on our own; they never told me what schools to attend, what work to seek, whom or when to marry. I knew I was never at the center of my parents’ lives, yet I also knew I could count on them when I needed their support, which more than once I did, and they did not fail to come through. As I say, a winning ticket.

As one writes about one’s own life, certain themes are likely to emerge that hadn’t previously stood out so emphatically. In my case, one persistent motif is that of older boys, then older men, who have supported or aided me in various ways. A boy nearly two years older than I named Jack Libby saw to it that I wasn’t bullied or pushed around in a neighborhood where I was the youngest kid on the block. In high school, a boy to whom I have given the name Jeremy Klein taught me a thing or two about gambling and corruption generally. Later in life, men eight, nine, ten, even twenty or more years older than I promoted my career: Hilton Kramer in promoting my candidacy for the editorship of the American Scholar , Irving Howe in helping me get a teaching job (without an advanced degree) at Northwestern, John Gross in publishing me regularly on important subjects in the Times Literary Supplement , Edward Shils in ways too numerous to mention. Something there was about me, evidently, that was highly protégéable.

I haven’t yet seen the index for my autobiography, but my guess is that it could have been name-ier. I failed, for example, to include my brief but pleasing friendship with Sol Linowitz. Sol was the chairman of Xerox, and later served the Johnson administration as ambassador to the Organization of American States. He also happened to be a reader of mine, and on my various trips to Washington I was often his guest at the F Street Club, a political lunch club where he reserved a private room in which we told each other jokes, chiefly Jewish jokes. I might also have added my six years as a member of the National Council of the National Endowment for the Arts, whose members included the actors Robert Stack and Celeste Holm, the Balanchine dancer Arthur Mitchell, Robert Joffrey, the soprano Renée Fleming, the novelist Toni Morrison, the dancer and choreographer Martha Graham, the architect I. M. Pei, the painter Helen Frankenthaler, and other highly droppable names.

Confronting one’s regrets is another inescapable element in writing one’s autobiography. Ah, regrets: the red MG convertible one didn’t buy in one’s twenties, the elegant young Asian woman one should have asked to dinner, the year one failed to spend in Paris. The greater the number of one’s regrets, the grander their scope, the sadder, at its close, one’s life figures to be. I come out fairly well in the regrets ledger. I regret not having studied classics at university, and so today I cannot read ancient Greek. I regret not having been a better father to my sons. I regret not asking my mother more questions about her family and not telling my father what a good man I thought he was. As regrets go, these are not minor, yet neither have I found them to be crippling.

Then there is the matter of recognizing one’s quirks, or peculiar habits. A notable one of mine, acquired late in life, is to have become near to the reverse of a hypochondriac. I have not yet reached the stage of anosognosia, or the belief that one is well when one is ill—a stage, by the way, that Chekhov, himself a physician, seems to have attained. I take vitamins, get flu and Covid shots, and watch what I eat, but I try to steer clear of physicians. This tendency kicked in not long after my decades-long primary care physician retired. In his The Body: A Guide for Occupants , Bill Bryson defines good health as the health enjoyed by someone who hasn’t had a physical lately. The ancients made this point more directly, advising bene caca et declina medicos (translation on request) . For a variety of reasons, physicians of the current day are fond of sending patients for a multiplicity of tests: bone density tests, colonoscopies, biopsies, X-rays of all sorts, CT scans, MRIs, stopping only at SATs. I am not keen to discover ailments that don’t bother me. At the age of eighty-seven, I figure I am playing with house money, and I have no wish to upset the house by prodding my health in search of imperfections any more than is absolutely necessary.

The older one gets, unless one’s life is lived in pain or deepest regret, the more fortunate one feels. Not always, not everyone, I suppose. “The longer I live, the more I am inclined to the belief that this earth is used by other planets as a lunatic asylum,” said George Bernard Shaw, who lived to age ninety-four. Though the world seems to be in a hell of a shape just now, I nonetheless prefer to delay my exit for as long as I can. I like it here, continue to find much that is interesting and amusing, and have no wish to depart the planet.

Still, with advancing years I have found my interests narrowing. Not least among my waning interests is that in travel. I like my domestic routine too much to abandon it for foreign countries where the natives figure to be wearing Air Jordan shoes, Ralph Lauren shirts, and cargo pants. Magazines that I once looked forward to, many of which I have written for in the past, no longer contain much that I find worth reading. A former moviegoer, I haven’t been to a movie theater in at least a decade. The high price of concert and opera tickets has driven me away. The supposedly great American playwrights—Arthur Miller, Tennessee Williams, Eugene O’Neill, Edward Albee—have never seemed all that good to me, and I miss them not at all. If all this sounds like a complaint that the culture has deserted me, I don’t feel that it has. I can still listen to my beloved Mozart on discs, read Tolstoy, Jane Austen, Dickens, George Eliot, Willa Cather, and the other great novelists, watch the splendid movies of earlier days on Turner Classics and HBO—live, in other words, on the culture of the past.

“Vho needs dis?” Igor Stravinsky is supposed to have remarked when presented with some new phenomena of the avant-garde or other work in the realm of art without obvious benefit. “Vho needs dis?” is a question that occurred to me more than once or twice as I wrote my autobiography. All I can say is that those who read my autobiography will read of the life of a man lucky enough to have devoted the better part of his days to fitting words together into sentences, sentences into paragraphs, and paragraphs into essays and stories on a wide variety of topics. Now in his autobiography all the sentences and paragraphs are about his own life. He hopes that these sentences are well made, these paragraphs have a point, and together they attain to a respectable truth quotient, containing no falsehoods whatsoever. He hopes that, on these modest grounds at least, his autobiography qualifies as worth reading.

Joseph Epstein is author of Gallimaufry , a collection of essays and reviews.

Image by Museum Rotterdam on Wikimedia Commons , licensed via Creative Commons . Image cropped.

Articles by Joseph Epstein

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Who will Trump pick as his running mate? In 2024, the ‘Veepstakes’ are higher than usual

Adjunct Senior Fellow, School of Global, Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University

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Being second in line for leadership of the most powerful country in the world is not an easy job. But for Mike Pence, vice president under Donald Trump, things were even harder than usual.

As insurrectionists descended on the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, they had a specific target in mind – the outgoing vice president. They built a wooden gallows, and called out for him by name: “Hang Mike Pence! Hang Mike Pence!”

As the extensive congressional hearings into the insurrection later documented, the threats were not hollow. One informant told FBI investigators that “if given the chance”, certain far-right insurrectionists would have tried to kill him. Pence escaped with his life, but only just .

The insurrectionists, as a federal investigation alleges, were drawn to the Capitol by Trump, who had just lost the 2020 election to Joe Biden. They were after Trump’s VP because, as one later claimed, he had “ betrayed ” Trump by not refusing to certify the election results.

The job of vice president of the United States is not a normal one at the best of times. The person chosen to run alongside Trump in this year’s election will no doubt be keeping Pence’s experience in mind. It will likely be someone who can convincingly pledge undying loyalty to Trump. The former president – and his supporters – will expect nothing less.

Speculation over who that person might be is heating up, and Trump, as usual, is relishing drawing out the process in order to gain as much attention as possible. So, who – and how – will he choose?

Making race a priority

A vice presidential candidate is usually chosen based on a political calculation. For instance, the running mate can be seen to offset a presidential nominee’s weaknesses (be they real or perceived).

The relatively young northerner John F. Kennedy, for example, chose the much more politically experienced southerner, Lyndon B. Johnson. Barack Obama, running to be the first Black president, similarly chose the older and more experienced – and reassuringly white – Biden.

In his first run, Trump settled on Pence to offset his perceived weakness with evangelical voters – a critical mobilising base to any Republican candidate.

Read more: Why 'wokeness' has become the latest battlefront for white conservatives in America

Viewed through this lens, the commonly accepted wisdom is that Trump has both a race and a woman problem, and that he should choose a VP candidate who can address at least one of those concerns.

In the first category, the leading candidates appear to be two men who ran against Trump for this year’s nomination – Tim Scott and Vivek Ramaswamy.

Scott – a South Carolinian that Bloomberg has dubbed “Trump’s New Black Best Friend” – is the only Black Republican in the Senate. He has certainly indicated he is keen for the job, professing his love for Trump and recently announcing his engagement (being single is generally regarded as a political liability ).

During the Republican campaign for the presidential nomination, Ramaswamy had presented himself as the newer, shinier Trump. In one memorable moment in the debates, he was first to raise his hand when the candidates were asked who would still support Trump if he is convicted of a crime. Ramaswamy also quickly endorsed Trump when he dropped out.

Trump would no doubt be pleased with such public professions of loyalty. But there is no indication Trump considers race to be a problem for his candidacy – in fact, quite the opposite.

Trump has been leaning in to increasingly extreme racist rhetoric. If he thought race mattered to his chances, he would likely be behaving differently. Trump’s political rise began with his racist “birther” conspiracies about Obama. It is not a stretch to suggest many of his supporters would baulk at a ticket that wasn’t entirely white.

Why a conservative woman might make sense

In the second category, the accepted wisdom is that Trump’s “ woman problem ” is a direct result of the signature achievement of his administration: the appointment of three conservative justices to the Supreme Court, which subsequently led to the overturning of Roe v Wade.

As Biden put it recently , candidates underestimate the political and electoral power of women at their peril.

Among the leading women Republican VP candidates are Elise Stefanik, a congresswoman from New York, and Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota.

The fact both are considered leading candidates reveals the political calculations behind Trump’s possible selection. While Trump has flip-flopped on abortion restrictions himself, both Stefanik and Noem have extremely conservative positions on reproductive rights.

And given what we know about Trump’s views on women, it seems likely his judgement would be almost entirely aesthetic. There is a very specific political reason why Noem has grown out her hair and gotten new teeth.

Congresswomen Marjorie Taylor Green is often added to this list, but may have slimmer chances. While she literally wears her Trump loyalty on her head , she attracts a lot of attention. And Trump does not much like to share the spotlight.

It’s also entirely possible Trump will go with a wildcard candidate. He is increasingly resentful of what we could loosely characterise as “establishment” political advice designed to curb his worst instincts. His campaign is now almost entirely based on a desire for revenge and retribution against the people he believes held him back.

There has never been a reason to believe Trump will follow conventional political wisdom.

The stakes are higher than usual

Given the cult of personality that has developed around Trump, some argue his choice of running mate is unlikely to shift many votes. As a result, it doesn’t actually matter all that much.

Other keen watchers of American politics, though, argue the opposite. Given the advanced ages of both Trump and Biden, the VP pick is more important than usual, not least because of the higher-than-normal chance this person could be elevated to the Oval Office at some point.

Read more: Biden and Trump, though old, are both likely to survive to the end of the next president's term, demographers explain

In Trump’s case, some argue that if he wins, he will be a “lame duck” president from day one since it would be his second term in office. So, all eyes will be on his VP as the presumptive nominee for 2028.

This glosses over the very real questions about the continuity of constitutional law under a second Trump presidency, and ignores the noises Trump supporters are already making about trying to remove presidential term limits. It also assumes that, like Pence, Trump’s next VP would choose to put their own political future or American democracy above being an enthusiastic supporter of Trump’s authoritarianism. This is unlikely.

Like everything this time around, the stakes are higher than usual.

Donald Trump
Vice President
2024 US presidential election
Vivek Ramaswamy

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The Case for Marrying an Older Man

A woman’s life is all work and little rest. An age gap relationship can help.

In the summer, in the south of France, my husband and I like to play, rather badly, the lottery. We take long, scorching walks to the village — gratuitous beauty, gratuitous heat — kicking up dust and languid debates over how we’d spend such an influx. I purchase scratch-offs, jackpot tickets, scraping the former with euro coins in restaurants too fine for that. I never cash them in, nor do I check the winning numbers. For I already won something like the lotto, with its gifts and its curses, when he married me.

He is ten years older than I am. I chose him on purpose, not by chance. As far as life decisions go, on balance, I recommend it.

When I was 20 and a junior at Harvard College, a series of great ironies began to mock me. I could study all I wanted, prove myself as exceptional as I liked, and still my fiercest advantage remained so universal it deflated my other plans. My youth. The newness of my face and body. Compellingly effortless; cruelly fleeting. I shared it with the average, idle young woman shrugging down the street. The thought, when it descended on me, jolted my perspective, the way a falling leaf can make you look up: I could diligently craft an ideal existence, over years and years of sleepless nights and industry. Or I could just marry it early.

So naturally I began to lug a heavy suitcase of books each Saturday to the Harvard Business School to work on my Nabokov paper. In one cavernous, well-appointed room sat approximately 50 of the planet’s most suitable bachelors. I had high breasts, most of my eggs, plausible deniability when it came to purity, a flush ponytail, a pep in my step that had yet to run out. Apologies to Progress, but older men still desired those things.

I could not understand why my female classmates did not join me, given their intelligence. Each time I reconsidered the project, it struck me as more reasonable. Why ignore our youth when it amounted to a superpower? Why assume the burdens of womanhood, its too-quick-to-vanish upper hand, but not its brief benefits at least? Perhaps it came easier to avoid the topic wholesale than to accept that women really do have a tragically short window of power, and reason enough to take advantage of that fact while they can. As for me, I liked history, Victorian novels, knew of imminent female pitfalls from all the books I’d read: vampiric boyfriends; labor, at the office and in the hospital, expected simultaneously; a decline in status as we aged, like a looming eclipse. I’d have disliked being called calculating, but I had, like all women, a calculator in my head. I thought it silly to ignore its answers when they pointed to an unfairness for which we really ought to have been preparing.

I was competitive by nature, an English-literature student with all the corresponding major ambitions and minor prospects (Great American novel; email job). A little Bovarist , frantic for new places and ideas; to travel here, to travel there, to be in the room where things happened. I resented the callow boys in my class, who lusted after a particular, socially sanctioned type on campus: thin and sexless, emotionally detached and socially connected, the opposite of me. Restless one Saturday night, I slipped on a red dress and snuck into a graduate-school event, coiling an HDMI cord around my wrist as proof of some technical duty. I danced. I drank for free, until one of the organizers asked me to leave. I called and climbed into an Uber. Then I promptly climbed out of it. For there he was, emerging from the revolving doors. Brown eyes, curved lips, immaculate jacket. I went to him, asked him for a cigarette. A date, days later. A second one, where I discovered he was a person, potentially my favorite kind: funny, clear-eyed, brilliant, on intimate terms with the universe.

I used to love men like men love women — that is, not very well, and with a hunger driven only by my own inadequacies. Not him. In those early days, I spoke fondly of my family, stocked the fridge with his favorite pasta, folded his clothes more neatly than I ever have since. I wrote his mother a thank-you note for hosting me in his native France, something befitting a daughter-in-law. It worked; I meant it. After graduation and my fellowship at Oxford, I stayed in Europe for his career and married him at 23.

Of course I just fell in love. Romances have a setting; I had only intervened to place myself well. Mainly, I spotted the precise trouble of being a woman ahead of time, tried to surf it instead of letting it drown me on principle. I had grown bored of discussions of fair and unfair, equal or unequal , and preferred instead to consider a thing called ease.

The reception of a particular age-gap relationship depends on its obviousness. The greater and more visible the difference in years and status between a man and a woman, the more it strikes others as transactional. Transactional thinking in relationships is both as American as it gets and the least kosher subject in the American romantic lexicon. When a 50-year-old man and a 25-year-old woman walk down the street, the questions form themselves inside of you; they make you feel cynical and obscene: How good of a deal is that? Which party is getting the better one? Would I take it? He is older. Income rises with age, so we assume he has money, at least relative to her; at minimum, more connections and experience. She has supple skin. Energy. Sex. Maybe she gets a Birkin. Maybe he gets a baby long after his prime. The sight of their entwined hands throws a lucid light on the calculations each of us makes, in love, to varying degrees of denial. You could get married in the most romantic place in the world, like I did, and you would still have to sign a contract.

Twenty and 30 is not like 30 and 40; some freshness to my features back then, some clumsiness in my bearing, warped our decade, in the eyes of others, to an uncrossable gulf. Perhaps this explains the anger we felt directed at us at the start of our relationship. People seemed to take us very, very personally. I recall a hellish car ride with a friend of his who began to castigate me in the backseat, in tones so low that only I could hear him. He told me, You wanted a rich boyfriend. You chased and snuck into parties . He spared me the insult of gold digger, but he drew, with other words, the outline for it. Most offended were the single older women, my husband’s classmates. They discussed me in the bathroom at parties when I was in the stall. What does he see in her? What do they talk about? They were concerned about me. They wielded their concern like a bludgeon. They paraphrased without meaning to my favorite line from Nabokov’s Lolita : “You took advantage of my disadvantage,” suspecting me of some weakness he in turn mined. It did not disturb them, so much, to consider that all relationships were trades. The trouble was the trade I’d made struck them as a bad one.

The truth is you can fall in love with someone for all sorts of reasons, tiny transactions, pluses and minuses, whose sum is your affection for each other, your loyalty, your commitment. The way someone picks up your favorite croissant. Their habit of listening hard. What they do for you on your anniversary and your reciprocal gesture, wrapped thoughtfully. The serenity they inspire; your happiness, enlivening it. When someone says they feel unappreciated, what they really mean is you’re in debt to them.

When I think of same-age, same-stage relationships, what I tend to picture is a woman who is doing too much for too little.

I’m 27 now, and most women my age have “partners.” These days, girls become partners quite young. A partner is supposed to be a modern answer to the oppression of marriage, the terrible feeling of someone looming over you, head of a household to which you can only ever be the neck. Necks are vulnerable. The problem with a partner, however, is if you’re equal in all things, you compromise in all things. And men are too skilled at taking .

There is a boy out there who knows how to floss because my friend taught him. Now he kisses college girls with fresh breath. A boy married to my friend who doesn’t know how to pack his own suitcase. She “likes to do it for him.” A million boys who know how to touch a woman, who go to therapy because they were pushed, who learned fidelity, boundaries, decency, manners, to use a top sheet and act humanely beneath it, to call their mothers, match colors, bring flowers to a funeral and inhale, exhale in the face of rage, because some girl, some girl we know, some girl they probably don’t speak to and will never, ever credit, took the time to teach him. All while she was working, raising herself, clawing up the cliff-face of adulthood. Hauling him at her own expense.

I find a post on Reddit where five thousand men try to define “ a woman’s touch .” They describe raised flower beds, blankets, photographs of their loved ones, not hers, sprouting on the mantel overnight. Candles, coasters, side tables. Someone remembering to take lint out of the dryer. To give compliments. I wonder what these women are getting back. I imagine them like Cinderella’s mice, scurrying around, their sole proof of life their contributions to a more central character. On occasion I meet a nice couple, who grew up together. They know each other with a fraternalism tender and alien to me. But I think of all my friends who failed at this, were failed at this, and I think, No, absolutely not, too risky . Riskier, sometimes, than an age gap.

My younger brother is in his early 20s, handsome, successful, but in many ways: an endearing disaster. By his age, I had long since wisened up. He leaves his clothes in the dryer, takes out a single shirt, steams it for three minutes. His towel on the floor, for someone else to retrieve. His lovely, same-age girlfriend is aching to fix these tendencies, among others. She is capable beyond words. Statistically, they will not end up together. He moved into his first place recently, and she, the girlfriend, supplied him with a long, detailed list of things he needed for his apartment: sheets, towels, hangers, a colander, which made me laugh. She picked out his couch. I will bet you anything she will fix his laundry habits, and if so, they will impress the next girl. If they break up, she will never see that couch again, and he will forget its story. I tell her when I visit because I like her, though I get in trouble for it: You shouldn’t do so much for him, not for someone who is not stuck with you, not for any boy, not even for my wonderful brother.

Too much work had left my husband, by 30, jaded and uninspired. He’d burned out — but I could reenchant things. I danced at restaurants when they played a song I liked. I turned grocery shopping into an adventure, pleased by what I provided. Ambitious, hungry, he needed someone smart enough to sustain his interest, but flexible enough in her habits to build them around his hours. I could. I do: read myself occupied, make myself free, materialize beside him when he calls for me. In exchange, I left a lucrative but deadening spreadsheet job to write full-time, without having to live like a writer. I learned to cook, a little, and decorate, somewhat poorly. Mostly I get to read, to walk central London and Miami and think in delicious circles, to work hard, when necessary, for free, and write stories for far less than minimum wage when I tally all the hours I take to write them.

At 20, I had felt daunted by the project of becoming my ideal self, couldn’t imagine doing it in tandem with someone, two raw lumps of clay trying to mold one another and only sullying things worse. I’d go on dates with boys my age and leave with the impression they were telling me not about themselves but some person who didn’t exist yet and on whom I was meant to bet regardless. My husband struck me instead as so finished, formed. Analyzable for compatibility. He bore the traces of other women who’d improved him, small but crucial basics like use a coaster ; listen, don’t give advice. Young egos mellow into patience and generosity.

My husband isn’t my partner. He’s my mentor, my lover, and, only in certain contexts, my friend. I’ll never forget it, how he showed me around our first place like he was introducing me to myself: This is the wine you’ll drink, where you’ll keep your clothes, we vacation here, this is the other language we’ll speak, you’ll learn it, and I did. Adulthood seemed a series of exhausting obligations. But his logistics ran so smoothly that he simply tacked mine on. I moved into his flat, onto his level, drag and drop, cleaner thrice a week, bills automatic. By opting out of partnership in my 20s, I granted myself a kind of compartmentalized, liberating selfishness none of my friends have managed. I am the work in progress, the party we worry about, a surprising dominance. When I searched for my first job, at 21, we combined our efforts, for my sake. He had wisdom to impart, contacts with whom he arranged coffees; we spent an afternoon, laughing, drawing up earnest lists of my pros and cons (highly sociable; sloppy math). Meanwhile, I took calls from a dear friend who had a boyfriend her age. Both savagely ambitious, hyperclose and entwined in each other’s projects. If each was a start-up , the other was the first hire, an intense dedication I found riveting. Yet every time she called me, I hung up with the distinct feeling that too much was happening at the same time: both learning to please a boss; to forge more adult relationships with their families; to pay bills and taxes and hang prints on the wall. Neither had any advice to give and certainly no stability. I pictured a three-legged race, two people tied together and hobbling toward every milestone.

I don’t fool myself. My marriage has its cons. There are only so many times one can say “thank you” — for splendid scenes, fine dinners — before the phrase starts to grate. I live in an apartment whose rent he pays and that shapes the freedom with which I can ever be angry with him. He doesn’t have to hold it over my head. It just floats there, complicating usual shorthands to explain dissatisfaction like, You aren’t being supportive lately . It’s a Frenchism to say, “Take a decision,” and from time to time I joke: from whom? Occasionally I find myself in some fabulous country at some fabulous party and I think what a long way I have traveled, like a lucky cloud, and it is frightening to think of oneself as vapor.

Mostly I worry that if he ever betrayed me and I had to move on, I would survive, but would find in my humor, preferences, the way I make coffee or the bed nothing that he did not teach, change, mold, recompose, stamp with his initials, the way Renaissance painters hid in their paintings their faces among a crowd. I wonder if when they looked at their paintings, they saw their own faces first. But this is the wrong question, if our aim is happiness. Like the other question on which I’m expected to dwell: Who is in charge, the man who drives or the woman who put him there so she could enjoy herself? I sit in the car, in the painting it would have taken me a corporate job and 20 years to paint alone, and my concern over who has the upper hand becomes as distant as the horizon, the one he and I made so wide for me.

To be a woman is to race against the clock, in several ways, until there is nothing left to be but run ragged.

We try to put it off, but it will hit us at some point: that we live in a world in which our power has a different shape from that of men, a different distribution of advantage, ours a funnel and theirs an expanding cone. A woman at 20 rarely has to earn her welcome; a boy at 20 will be turned away at the door. A woman at 30 may find a younger woman has taken her seat; a man at 30 will have invited her. I think back to the women in the bathroom, my husband’s classmates. What was my relationship if not an inconvertible sign of this unfairness? What was I doing, in marrying older, if not endorsing it? I had taken advantage of their disadvantage. I had preempted my own. After all, principled women are meant to defy unfairness, to show some integrity or denial, not plan around it, like I had. These were driven women, successful, beautiful, capable. I merely possessed the one thing they had already lost. In getting ahead of the problem, had I pushed them down? If I hadn’t, would it really have made any difference?

When we decided we wanted to be equal to men, we got on men’s time. We worked when they worked, retired when they retired, had to squeeze pregnancy, children, menopause somewhere impossibly in the margins. I have a friend, in her late 20s, who wears a mood ring; these days it is often red, flickering in the air like a siren when she explains her predicament to me. She has raised her fair share of same-age boyfriends. She has put her head down, worked laboriously alongside them, too. At last she is beginning to reap the dividends, earning the income to finally enjoy herself. But it is now, exactly at this precipice of freedom and pleasure, that a time problem comes closing in. If she would like to have children before 35, she must begin her next profession, motherhood, rather soon, compromising inevitably her original one. The same-age partner, equally unsettled in his career, will take only the minimum time off, she guesses, or else pay some cost which will come back to bite her. Everything unfailingly does. If she freezes her eggs to buy time, the decision and its logistics will burden her singly — and perhaps it will not work. Overlay the years a woman is supposed to establish herself in her career and her fertility window and it’s a perfect, miserable circle. By midlife women report feeling invisible, undervalued; it is a telling cliché, that after all this, some husbands leave for a younger girl. So when is her time, exactly? For leisure, ease, liberty? There is no brand of feminism which achieved female rest. If women’s problem in the ’50s was a paralyzing malaise, now it is that they are too active, too capable, never permitted a vacation they didn’t plan. It’s not that our efforts to have it all were fated for failure. They simply weren’t imaginative enough.

For me, my relationship, with its age gap, has alleviated this rush , permitted me to massage the clock, shift its hands to my benefit. Very soon, we will decide to have children, and I don’t panic over last gasps of fun, because I took so many big breaths of it early: on the holidays of someone who had worked a decade longer than I had, in beautiful places when I was young and beautiful, a symmetry I recommend. If such a thing as maternal energy exists, mine was never depleted. I spent the last nearly seven years supported more than I support and I am still not as old as my husband was when he met me. When I have a child, I will expect more help from him than I would if he were younger, for what does professional tenure earn you if not the right to set more limits on work demands — or, if not, to secure some child care, at the very least? When I return to work after maternal upheaval, he will aid me, as he’s always had, with his ability to put himself aside, as younger men are rarely able.

Above all, the great gift of my marriage is flexibility. A chance to live my life before I become responsible for someone else’s — a lover’s, or a child’s. A chance to write. A chance at a destiny that doesn’t adhere rigidly to the routines and timelines of men, but lends itself instead to roomy accommodation, to the very fluidity Betty Friedan dreamed of in 1963 in The Feminine Mystique , but we’ve largely forgotten: some career or style of life that “permits year-to-year variation — a full-time paid job in one community, part-time in another, exercise of the professional skill in serious volunteer work or a period of study during pregnancy or early motherhood when a full-time job is not feasible.” Some things are just not feasible in our current structures. Somewhere along the way we stopped admitting that, and all we did was make women feel like personal failures. I dream of new structures, a world in which women have entry-level jobs in their 30s; alternate avenues for promotion; corporate ladders with balconies on which they can stand still, have a smoke, take a break, make a baby, enjoy themselves, before they keep climbing. Perhaps men long for this in their own way. Actually I am sure of that.

Once, when we first fell in love, I put my head in his lap on a long car ride; I remember his hands on my face, the sun, the twisting turns of a mountain road, surprising and not surprising us like our romance, and his voice, telling me that it was his biggest regret that I was so young, he feared he would lose me. Last week, we looked back at old photos and agreed we’d given each other our respective best years. Sometimes real equality is not so obvious, sometimes it takes turns, sometimes it takes almost a decade to reveal itself.

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‘Even though I loved him greatly, I’m a bit guilty about being so terribly upset’ … Adrian as a child with his dad.

I’ve spent a lifetime dreading the loss of a parent. And now it’s finally happened

I am shocked at how shocked I am. Why are we so unprepared when the inevitable comes to pass?

R ound at my mate’s house, one Saturday morning when I was 17 years old, something astounding appeared on his television. This was 3 November 1984. I know this for sure because I just looked it up. It was the day Indira Gandhi was cremated. Laid out on a sandalwood pyre, her head clearly visible, her body – her actual body – was in plain sight as her son lit the pyre to see his mother, in the words of most newspaper reports, consigned to flames .

I was aghast, horrified. But my friend’s dad said a thing that made me think again. It went something like this: “No, I think it’s very healthy. Death’s too hidden away in our society. I was in my 40s before I saw a dead body, and it was my father’s. What preparation did I have for that?” These words stuck fast in my mind.

And in the blink of an eye, almost 40 years on, last week it was me finding myself with a dead body for the first time, and it was my dad’s. Where was my preparation for this moment? I’d picked up precious little since watching Gandhi’s mortal remains disappear on that wide-eyed morning half a lifetime ago. Would this moment have been any easier if I’d spent the intervening years in a society less inclined to hide away its dead, in a world of public, coffin-less cremations or wakes with open caskets? I don’t know. I asked a couple of close friends with experience of both, one of Punjabi heritage, the other Irish. They didn’t know either. Both winced at some challenging childhood memories.

I tried to compute what was in front of me. I was surprised at how sure I was that the body itself was now irrelevant. His soul, his consciousness, his – how can I put it? – his himness had vanished. It wasn’t him. This was reassuring insomuch as it rendered what I was looking at kind of meaningless. But that’s not to say I will ever be able to unsee it so, again, I just don’t know.

I remain shocked at how shocked I am at his dying. After all, he was 86, we knew it was coming and it was a mercy to him – to all of us – that it came when it did. And though I loved him greatly, I’m surprised and even a bit guilty about being so terribly upset. It feels not far short of self-indulgent when I share the news with those of my friends who lost parents, let alone siblings and children, way before their time. It’s these tragedies that consume our attention, which is quite understandable, and as it should be. But I for one had slightly lost sight of the fact that standard, common or garden, had-a-good-innings-type deaths of aged parents remain bloody awful.

So, if you don’t mind, herewith, in no particular order, some thoughts. Just stuff that’s occurred to me since my dad had a fall (dread phrase), fracturing his shoulder, on 20 January. He was discharged from A&E that night, and a few days later a rehabilitation bed was found for him in a rural community hospital nearly an hour’s drive away. He died there six weeks later.

Here’s a thing: in the 10 days since, I’ve typed that word died hundreds of times, yet I’m still shocked every time I do so. Just when I was starting to get used to it, I got a text referring to my “dad’s death”. I’d not seen it expressed like that. Death. Death rather than died. It floored me. Odd that. Dying, too; I flinched as I typed that above. Wow. If even the most basic nouns and verbs lie in wait, scattered on this Via Dolorosa like shards of glass, how are you supposed to negotiate any of it?

This little hospital was a nice place, with kindness available to him day and night. But it slowly became clear he wouldn’t be coming out of there. I suppose the thing about a deathbed is that you don’t want to be on it for too long. For a while it felt as if he was stuck between a life he didn’t want to live any more and a death he didn’t want to die. The notion of life being thrown into reverse, into “the whole hideous inverted childhood”, as Larkin put it , turns out to be devastatingly, almost farcically accurate. Of all the many indignities involved there was one that finished me off: seeing Dad reduced to drinking from a sippy cup. A sippy cup, for fuck’s sake. Enough. I just looked up that poem and couldn’t even get past its title. I can’t even type the title here. I may well never read it again.

As the end rushed towards us, I realised that there are two types of people in the world. There are those who are familiar with dying and death, and there are those who aren’t. In the former group are doctors and nurses, emergency service workers, clerics, undertakers and so on. These people, and thank God for them, know what to expect and what to do. In the vast majority are the rest of us, who are woefully – mercifully? – short of “hands-on” experience of the dead. And still less of the process of dying, of the hours, minutes and moments before the end comes.

Initially, alone with him, I veered wildly between fear, gratitude, horror, grief, patience and impatience. I sat, stood or paced around. I did a Wordle, read a Jack Reacher novel, ate a scotch egg. Everything felt a bit wrong. Once the rest of the family were there it felt better. All the above still applied but now a little laughter found its way into the room. And so the moments passed.

And then it happened.

All my life I’d worried about my dad dying. Other close family too, obviously, but mainly my dad. I’ve no idea why. Here I was, around half a century after I first started worrying about this very thing happening. And it had happened. I couldn’t, and can’t, get my head around much at all. About the only thing I am sure of is that 50 years of worrying about it was properly pointless. Because imagining – let’s call it pre-feeling – this pain turned out to be no preparation at all for the real thing.

Peter John Chiles. Born 18 February 1938. Died 9 March 2024.

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here .

Death and dying
Parents and parenting

Is a robot writing your kids’ essays? We asked educators to weigh in on the growing role of AI in classrooms.

Educators weigh in on the growing role of ai and chatgpt in classrooms..

Kara Baskin talked to several educators about what kind of AI use they’re seeing in classrooms and how they’re monitoring it.

Remember writing essays in high school? Chances are you had to look up stuff in an encyclopedia — an actual one, not Wikipedia — or else connect to AOL via a modem bigger than your parents’ Taurus station wagon.

Now, of course, there’s artificial intelligence. According to new research from Pew, about 1 in 5 US teens who’ve heard of ChatGPT have used it for schoolwork. Kids in upper grades are more apt to have used the chatbot: About a quarter of 11th- and 12th-graders who know about ChatGPT have tried it.

For the uninitiated, ChatGPT arrived on the scene in late 2022, and educators continue to grapple with the ethics surrounding its growing popularity. Essentially, it generates free, human-like responses based on commands. (I’m sure this sentence will look antiquated in about six months, like when people described the internet as the “information superhighway.”)

I used ChatGPT to plug in this prompt: “Write an essay on ‘The Scarlet Letter.’” Within moments, ChatGPT created an essay as thorough as anything I’d labored over in AP English.

Is this cheating? Is it just part of our strange new world? I talked to several educators about what they’re seeing in classrooms and how they’re monitoring it. Before you berate your child over how you wrote essays with a No. 2 pencil, here are some things to consider.

Adapting to new technology isn’t immoral. “We have to recalibrate our sense of what’s acceptable. There was a time when every teacher said: ‘Oh, it’s cheating to use Wikipedia.’ And guess what? We got used to it, we decided it’s reputable enough, and we cite Wikipedia all the time,” says Noah Giansiracusa, an associate math professor at Bentley University who hosts the podcast “ AI in Academia: Navigating the Future .”

“There’s a calibration period where a technology is new and untested. It’s good to be cautious and to treat it with trepidation. Then, over time, the norms kind of adapt,” he says — just like new-fangled graphing calculators or the internet in days of yore.

“I think the current conversation around AI should not be centered on an issue with plagiarism. It should be centered on how AI will alter methods for learning and expressing oneself. ‘Catching’ students who use fully AI-generated products ... implies a ‘gotcha’ atmosphere,” says Jim Nagle, a history teacher at Bedford High School. “Since AI is already a huge part of our day-to-day lives, it’s no surprise our students are making it a part of their academic tool kit. Teachers and students should be at the forefront of discussions about responsible and ethical use.”

Teachers and parents could use AI to think about education at a higher level. Really, learning is about more than regurgitating information — or it should be, anyway. But regurgitation is what AI does best.

“If our system is just for students to write a bunch of essays and then grade the results? Something’s missing. We need to really talk about their purpose and what they’re getting out of this, and maybe think about different forms of assignments and grading,” Giansiracusa says.

After all, while AI aggregates and organizes ideas, the quality of its responses depends on the users’ prompts. Instead of recoiling from it, use it as a conversation-starter.

“What parents and teachers can do is to start the conversation with kids: ‘What are we trying to learn here? Is it even something that ChatGPT could answer? Why did your assignment not convince you that you need to do this thinking on your own when a tool can do it for you?’” says Houman Harouni , a lecturer on education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education.

Harouni urges parents to read an essay written by ChatGPT alongside their student. Was it good? What could be done better? Did it feel like a short cut?

“What they’re going to remember is that you had that conversation with them; that someone thought, at some point in their lives, that taking a shortcut is not the best way ... especially if you do it with the tool right in front of you, because you have something real to talk about,” he says.

Harouni hopes teachers think about its implications, too. Consider math: So much grunt work has been eliminated by calculators and computers. Yet kids are still tested as in days of old, when perhaps they could expand their learning to be assessed in ways that are more personal and human-centric, leaving the rote stuff to AI.

“We could take this moment of confusion and loss of certainty seriously, at least in some small pockets, and start thinking about what a different kind of school would look like. Five years from now, we might have the beginnings of some very interesting exploration. Five years from now, you and I might be talking about schools wherein teaching and learning is happening in a very self-directed way, in a way that’s more based on … igniting the kid’s interest and seeing where they go and supporting them to go deeper and to go wider,” Harouni says.

Teachers have the chance to offer assignments with more intentionality.

“Really think about the purpose of the assignments. Don’t just think of the outcome and the deliverable: ‘I need a student to produce a document.’ Why are we getting students to write? Why are we doing all these things in the first place? If teachers are more mindful, and maybe parents can also be more mindful, I think it pushes us away from this dangerous trap of thinking about in terms of ‘cheating,’ which, to me, is a really slippery path,” Giansiracusa says.

AI can boost confidence and reduce procrastination. Sometimes, a robot can do something better than a human, such as writing a dreaded resume and cover letter. And that’s OK; it’s useful, even.

“Often, students avoid applying to internships because they’re just overwhelmed at the thought of writing a cover letter, or they’re afraid their resume isn’t good enough. I think that tools like this can help them feel more confident. They may be more likely to do it sooner and have more organized and better applications,” says Kristin Casasanto, director of post-graduate planning at Olin College of Engineering.

Casasanto says that AI is also useful for de-stressing during interview prep.

“Students can use generative AI to plug in a job description and say, ‘Come up with a list of interview questions based on the job description,’ which will give them an idea of what may be asked, and they can even then say, ‘Here’s my resume. Give me answers to these questions based on my skills and experience.’ They’re going to really build their confidence around that,” Casasanto says.

Plus, when students use AI for basics, it frees up more time to meet with career counselors about substantive issues.

“It will help us as far as scalability. … Career services staff can then utilize our personal time in much more meaningful ways with students,” Casasanto says.

We need to remember: These kids grew up during a pandemic. We can’t expect kids to resist technology when they’ve been forced to learn in new ways since COVID hit.

“Now we’re seeing pandemic-era high school students come into college. They’ve been channeled through Google Classroom their whole career,” says Katherine Jewell, a history professor at Fitchburg State University.

“They need to have technology management and information literacy built into the curriculum,” Jewell says.

Jewell recently graded a paper on the history of college sports. It was obvious which papers were written by AI: They didn’t address the question. In her syllabus, Jewell defines plagiarism as “any attempt by a student to represent the work of another, including computers, as their own.”

This means that AI qualifies, but she also has an open mind, given students’ circumstances.

“My students want to do the right thing, for the most part. They don’t want to get away with stuff. I understand why they turned to these tools; I really do. I try to reassure them that I’m here to help them learn systems. I’m focusing much more on the learning process. I incentivize them to improve, and I acknowledge: ‘You don’t know how to do this the first time out of the gate,’” Jewell says. “I try to incentivize them so that they’re improving their confidence in their abilities, so they don’t feel the need to turn to these tools.”

Understand the forces that make kids resort to AI in the first place . Clubs, sports, homework: Kids are busy and under pressure. Why not do what’s easy?

“Kids are so overscheduled in their day-to-day lives. I think there’s so much enormous pressure on these kids, whether it’s self-inflicted, parent-inflicted, or school-culture inflicted. It’s on them to maximize their schedule. They’ve learned that AI can be a way to take an assignment that would take five hours and cut it down to one,” says a teacher at a competitive high school outside Boston who asked to remain anonymous.

Recently, this teacher says, “I got papers back that were just so robotic and so cold. I had to tell [students]: ‘I understand that you tried to use a tool to help you. I’m not going to penalize you, but what I am going to penalize you for is that you didn’t actually answer the prompt.”

Afterward, more students felt safe to come forward to say they’d used AI. This teacher hopes that age restrictions become implemented for these programs, similar to apps such as Snapchat. Educationally and developmentally, they say, high-schoolers are still finding their voice — a voice that could be easily thwarted by a robot.

“Part of high school writing is to figure out who you are, and what is your voice as a writer. And I think, developmentally, that takes all of high school to figure out,” they say.

And AI can’t replicate voice and personality — for now, at least.

Kara Baskin can be reached at [email protected] . Follow her @kcbaskin .

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The Anti-Abortion Endgame That Erin Hawley Admitted to the Supreme Court

Somewhat lost in the debate around abortion pills and oral arguments that took place at the Supreme Court in FDA v. Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine on Tuesday was one deeply uncomfortable truth: The very notion of what it means to practice emergency medicine is in dispute, with anti-abortion doctors insisting upon a right to refuse treatment for any patient who doesn’t meet their test of moral purity. Indeed, the right asserted is that in the absence of certainty about which patients are morally pure, the doctors want to deny medication to all patients, nationwide.

In public, the plaintiffs in this case—a group of doctors and dentists seeking to ban medication abortion—have long claimed they object to ending “unborn life” by finishing an “incomplete or failed” abortion at the hospital. But in court, they went much further. Their lawyer, Erin Hawley, admitted at oral argument that her clients don’t merely oppose terminating a pregnancy—they are pursuing the right to turn away a patient whose pregnancy has already been terminated . Indeed, they appear to want to deny even emergency care to patients whose fetus is no longer “alive,” on the grounds that the patient used an abortion drug earlier in the process. And they aim to deploy this broad fear of “complicity” against the FDA, to demand a nationwide prohibition on the abortion pill to ensure that they need never again see (and be forced to turn away) patients who’ve previously taken it. This is not a theory of being “complicit” in ending life. It is a theory that doctors can pick and choose their patients based on the “moral distress” they might feel in helping them.

It should come as no surprise that the same judge who tried to ban mifepristone in this case, Matthew Kacsmaryk, has also attempted to legalize anti-LGBTQ+ discrimination in health care nationwide. This is the ballgame: weaponize subjective religious beliefs against secular society to degrade the quality of care for everyone. If you can’t persuade Americans to adopt hardcore evangelical views, exploit the legal system to coerce them into it anyway.

Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine is at once embarrassingly frivolous and existentially important. Don’t let the jokes about how silly the Comstock Act seems , or how speculative the theory of standing is, get in the way of taking a serious look at the claims on offer. The plaintiffs say they are terrified that one day, a patient may walk into their emergency room suffering complications from a medication abortion prescribed by some other doctor. This patient may need their assistance completing the abortion or simply recovering from the complete abortion, which these plaintiffs deem “complicity” in sin. And they say the solution is either a total, nationwide ban on mifepristone, the first drug in the medication abortion sequence, or a draconian (and medically unnecessary) set of restrictions that would place mifepristone out of reach for many patients. (The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5 th Circuit ruled to reinstate those restrictions at their behest.)

It is a twisted line of logic, one that should never have reached the Supreme Court in the first place. But it is also a product of the court’s past indulgence of outlandish claims about moral “complicity.” As was made plain in the oral arguments and briefing, activist doctors are no longer satisfied with personal conscience exemptions already granted under state and federal law; they now insist that nobody, anywhere, should have access to the abortion pill, in order to ensure that they themselves won’t have to treat patients who took one. At a minimum, they say, they should be able to radically roll back access to the pill in all 50 states to reduce the odds that one of these handful of objectors might someday encounter a patient who took it. This extremist argument lays bare the transformation of the idea of “complicity” from a shield for religious dissenters to a sword for ideologues desperate to seize control over other people’s lives and bodies.

At oral arguments, several justices pressed Hawley, who argued on behalf of Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine, with an obvious retort: Why can’t her clients simply refuse to treat these hypothetical someday patients on the grounds that they cannot help end the “life” of a fetus or embryo? After all, federal law guarantees doctors the right not to have to provide an abortion if doing so is “contrary to his religious beliefs or moral convictions.” Justices Amy Coney Barrett and Brett Kavanaugh secured assurances from Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar, early in the arguments, that under no circumstances could the government force any health care provider to ever participate in an abortion in violation of their conscience. Justice Elena Kagan asked Prelogar: “Suppose somebody has bled significantly, needs a transfusion, or, you know, any of a number of other things that might happen.” Would the plaintiffs object to treating them? Prelogar said the record was unclear.

Hawley, who is married to far-right Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, then approached the lectern and cleared up any confusion: Yes, she insisted, treating a patient who has undergone a medication abortion violates the conscience of the plaintiff physicians even if there is no “live” fetus or embryo to terminate anymore. “Completing an elective abortion means removing an embryo fetus, whether or not they’re alive, as well as placental tissue,” Hawley told Kagan. So the plaintiffs don’t object just to taking a “life.” They also object to the mere act of removing leftover tissue, even from the placenta.

Of course, these doctors must remove “dead” fetal tissue and placentas all the time—from patients who experienced a spontaneous miscarriage. By their own admission, the plaintiffs regularly help women complete miscarriages through surgery or medication. Those women they will gladly treat. Other women, though—the ones who induced their own miscarriage via medication—are too sinful to touch. Before the plaintiffs can administer even lifesaving emergency treatment, they need to know the circumstances of this pregnancy loss: Spontaneous miscarriages are OK; medication abortions are not.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, too, zeroed in on this admission. She told Hawley that she had thought the objection was to “participating in a procedure that is ending the life [of the fetus].” Hawley told her no: Any participation in an abortion, even through the indirect treatment of a patient without a “live” fetus, violated the doctors’ conscience. So, wait. What about “handing them a water bottle?” Jackson asked. Hawley dodged the question, declining to say whether helping a patient hydrate would constitute impermissible complicity in sin.

All this is reminiscent of Little Sisters of the Poor , a case about a Catholic charitable group that was afforded an exemption from the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate. The Little Sisters were asked to check a box signaling to the government that they could not comply with the mandate, at which point the government would step in to cover their employees. But the Little Sisters refused, viewing this action—the checking of a box to opt out of coverage—as “complicity” in abortion because it would in turn trigger government payment for contraception (which they viewed as abortifacients). The Supreme Court and the Trump administration ultimately indulged the Little Sisters’ claim .

Here, we have emergency room physicians asserting that they will not participate in lifesaving medical intervention unless they approve of the reason for the pregnancy loss. Presumably, if the pregnant patient is an unwed mother, or a gay or transgender person, the doctor would be similarly complicit in sin and decline service. Seen through this lens, since one can never know which sins one is enabling in the ER, each and every day, a narrow conscience exemption becomes a sweeping guarantee that absolutely nobody in the country can ever have access to basic health care, let alone miscarriage management. (Of course, these plaintiffs might focus only on one set of “sins” they see as relevant.) In a country effectively governed by Kacsmaryk and his plaintiff friends, a gay person suffering a stroke could be turned away from any hospital because of his sexual orientation, all to spare a doctor from a glancing encounter with prior sin. As Tobias Barrington Wolff, a professor of law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, put it to us in an email, this unbounded view of complicity “is part of enacting the social death of people and practices you abhor, which in turn can contribute to the material death of people and practices you abhor.”

One of the most exhausting lessons of post- Roe America is that being “pro-life” definitively means privileging the life of the presumptively sin-free unborn—or even their “dead” remains—over the life of the sin-racked adults who carry them. This is why women are left to go septic or to hemorrhage in hospital parking lots; it is why C-sections are performed in nonviable pregnancies, at high risk to mothers; it’s why the women who sued in Texas to secure exceptions to that state’s abortion ban are condemned by the state as sinners and whores . And it’s why—in the eyes of the Alliance for Hippocratic Medicine — it is a greater hardship for a physician to “waste precious moments scrubbing in, scrubbing out” of emergency surgery, as Hawley put it, so long as they don’t believe that the emergency warrants their professional services, than it is for a pregnant person, anywhere in the country, including in states that permit abortion, to be forced to give birth.

At oral argument, Hawley explained that her clients have “structured [their] medical practice to bring life into the world. When they are called from their labor and delivery floor down to the operating room to treat a woman suffering from abortion drug harm, that is diametrically opposed to why they entered the medical profession. It comes along with emotional harm.” The emotional harm alleged here is that unless these doctors approve of the specific circumstances of the ER visit, they violate not only their own medical preference but also their religious convictions. But they will never truly know enough about the sins of their patients to be able to shield themselves against being a link in a chain of subjective lifelong sin. And to be a doctor, especially an emergency physician, should be to understand that your patients’ private choices and spiritual life are not really open to your pervasive and vigilant medical veto. This deep-rooted suspicion of patients deemed insufficiently pure for lifesaving treatment didn’t begin with the availability of medication abortion. It will assuredly not end there.

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Who Am I Essay
Who Am I Essay Example 1 Outline. Below is a layout you should follow when writing a personal essay to impress your professor. Introduction paragraph (50-75 words) Hook- The Question - who am I? Brief summary: Well, I know quite much about myself: I am a social, kind, respectful, and principled young man.
Who am I Essay
Understanding your readers will make your essay more compelling (1). It will be easier for you to engage them and make them emotionally connected to your story. 2) Don't be afraid to look vulnerable. Allow the readers to see your inner feelings. Sincerity and reflection are the new black, you know.
How to Write a "Who Am I" Essay: Free Tips With Examples
Also, the audience must see this lesson as a moral of a narrative story. 2. Philosophical Outline Format for a "Who Am I" Essay. When writing a philosophical essay on the theme "Who Am I," students should follow an outline format below: I. Introduction. Thesis statement (The question that a writer intends to answer).
How to Write Who Am I Essay and Sound Smart
3. Share an interesting story. When you compose a "Who Am I" essay not just for yourself, make sure that it will be interesting for your audience. Your childhood memories can be priceless for you and your parents, but they're not likely to interest the admissions officers, unless you were an extraordinary child. 4.
How to Write a "Who Am I" Essay: Get Tips With Examples
In turn, how elements can be personal attributes, academic performance, or work experiences. In the conclusion section, learners need to restate ampere thesis and reflect on the main ideas, closure with an remark the impresses the audience. 4. Autobiographical Outline Format for ampere "Who Am I" Essay.
How to Write Who Am I Essay
Postpone the Revelation. One great idea in essay writing is to postpone the intrigue, the revelation. To keep the reader interested until the very end, keep something to yourself until you get there. Introduce it at the start, but do not go explaining it completely right away. Do it gradually and finish at the conclusion.
How to Write "Who am I" Essay
Even though it may be challenging, writing an essay does not have to be daunting or stressful if you follow these step-by-step tips to create a who am I essay outline. By following the steps in this guide, you can write a great essay about yourself that will impress the readers.
How to Write About Yourself in a College Essay
Focus on a specific moment, and describe the scene using your five senses. Mention objects that have special significance to you. Instead of following a common story arc, include a surprising twist or insight. Your unique voice can shed new perspective on a common human experience while also revealing your personality.
Who am I Essay Example: How To Write Guide With Examples
How to write who am I essay will be preceded by thinking about the starter. First, the starter must have a good line that is catchy and long-lasting in the memory of the reader. The starting Paragraph of Who am I Essay. Chief line: An example of a key/chief line.
"Who Am I Essay": What Details Should You Write About Yourself?
In this case, including your life's philosophy and marital status is essential. Follow the outline below when writing a who am I college essay using the autobiographical format: Introduction - This comprises a hook, a brief introduction to the audience, and a thesis statement. Body paragraphs - These sections should cover your early years ...
Essay on Who Am I Examples and Samples
4 min read. The question "Who am I?" prompts reflection on identity, values, and experiences, especially for young people. Students often involve introspection and self-analysis in these essays. Our samples can guide you in articulating your sense of self in your academic writing.
Who Am I Essay: How to Write It and More Helpful Tips
Tips on writing a Who am I essay. For your reader, you are an open book and they have no idea about its content. So you should show them how rich and bright the content is. But without a good cover, it is impossible to do it. So your task is to create a good and bright cover that will attract your readers and make them fight for you as a candidate.
Who Am I Essay Example
Who Am I Essay 5 (1600 Words) Reflection Paper ... To write a good essay about yourself, highlight your unique qualities, experiences, and accomplishments. Provide a personal narrative that showcases your strengths, values, and goals. Be genuine, concise, and organized to make a compelling and memorable essay. ...
Who Am I: Creative Writing: [Essay Example], 1040 words
Who am I? This is a question that I should ask myself everyday, I consider myself as an individual person, with a body and a soul, a person who makes mistakes, laughs, cries, hurts, smiles, and loves. My life is full of meaningful relationships and memories. I am loved, supported, and encouraged by my family.
Who am I Essay in English for Students and Children
Answer 2: True self is also known as real self, original self, or authentic self. Furthermore, all of these terms refer to the most honest aspect of a person. In other words, true self is an individual's most authentic version keeping aside all the pretensions, affectations, and masks. Previous. Essay on Positive Thinking.
Essay on Who Am I for Students and Children
I try to be a sincere and obedient student and always do my homework and do well in studies. I also respect my teachers and am an obedient student. My teachers are patient and they always guide me to overcome my mistakes. Fourthly, the role that we all love is that of a friend. I have many friends.
How to Write a Who Am I Essay
Starting a who am I essay is easy with the proper guidance. You only need to understand your assignment's question. Next, determine the format you wish to use for presenting your ideas or marketing yourself. Afterward, choose the life experiences and the details you want your readers to know about you.
PDF Who Am I? Example Essay
Example Essay. Student "Who Am I" Essay. Who Am I? I've been through a lot in my life and I'm only eighteen-years-old. I never knew. that I would overcome the problems that I had with my parents but I did. I think that's. why I'm a strong person. The things that I experienced made me scared and I wanted to.
How to Write Who Am I Essay ? Smart Tips by Top Experts
To impress the supervisor or the job interviewer, you need to follow the guidelines of writing an essay on the topic 'Who am I'. Read on to know how you can write an essay with a proper self-analysis so that you can impress your supervisors. 5 simple ways to analyse yourself. As you know that a 'who am I' essay is all about self-analysis.
Essay on Who Am I for Students and Children in English
Who Am I Essay is helpful for students of classes 1,2,3,4,5 and 6. This can be used for an essay writing competition and assignment. I am a boy who is a very ambitious person and dreams to become a doctor one fine day when I grow up. I want to serve people in need and save their lives, just like my father does.
17.3: Starting the "Who I Am" Story
2. Write down everything you remember. Of course, there are numerous ways to write a first draft, but for a Who I Am story, simply writing down everything you remember about the event is a good place to start. Usually, it is better to have more writing than what you need. So start by writing everything down in chronological order.
Essay Sample: Who Am I? By Handmadewriting Blog
Yet, when I took the time to try and figure out Who am I, I found this question is the one that requires critical thinking. In general, the answer to this question is that I am a regular person who loves spending quality time with the people I appreciate. In addition, I dedicate myself to completing my duties, and I have a dream of becoming a ...
PDF Compare and Contrast Essay APSU Writing Center
This method provides a clear and straightforward structure for the essay. 1.Start with a topic sentence introducing the subjects. 2.Address each topic separately, listing all relevant points. a.Block 1: Discuss all the main points about the first topic. i.Present one aspect of the first topic. ii.Provide evidence and analysis. iii.Transition to ...
Writing My Autobiography by Joseph Epstein
One of my challenges in writing my autobiography was to avoid seeming to brag about my quite modest accomplishments. In the Rhetoric, Aristotle writes: "Speaking at length about oneself, making false claims, taking the credit for what another has done, these are signs of boastfulness.".
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Sample Essays on “Who Am I?” How to guide, with Outlines

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Who Am I Essay Example 1 Outline

Who Am I Essay Example 1

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Personal Essay Example 2

Personal Essay Sample 3 Outline

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How to Write a “Who Am I” Essay: Free Tips With Examples

General Guidelines for Writing a “Who I Am” Essay

Differences Between a “Who Am I” Essay and Other Papers

1. Narrative Format

2. Philosophical Format

3. College Application Format

4. Autobiographical Format

Essay Structures for “Who Am I” Papers

1. Narrative Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

2. Philosophical Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

3. College Application Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

4. Autobiographical Outline Format for a “Who Am I” Essay

Effective Writing Strategies

Example of a Narrative Essay: Who Am I?

II. Example of a Body

III. Conclusion Sample

Example of a Philosophical Essay: Who Am I?

Example of a College Application Essay: Who Am I?

Example of an Autobiographical Essay: Who Am I?

Defining Characteristics of a “Who Am I” Essay

Summing Up on How to Write a “Who Am I” Essay

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How to Write Who Am I Essay

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Who Am I Essay

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