Returning from a semester abroad, and in my case eight months of traveling, has culminated an identity crisis for me.
I do believe identity influences the lens which we view the world through, but identity is also malleable. With every day that I spent in a new place, my identity shifted slightly. Now that I have returned home, I must pick apart where my identity has changed and grown. I no longer feel I identify as the same person that I was. I’m seeing this as a sign of growth and chance to evaluate who I am when I strip away static location.
I believe that as humans we all experience some of the same things—love, kindness, hope, trust—yet how we perceive them is tied to our identity and culture. In Ireland, people exemplified these in a similar way to Americans except more discreetly. Ireland and the United States are very similar due to high emigration ties since the start of our country which makes sense why the country has such high similarities to my “home.”
Over time, I noticed the small ways in which interactions depended on culture and identity such as how approachable people are or their dating culture. It took time to understand but I was lucky enough to be taking a history course that covered influences on Modern Ireland and the culture I experienced aligned with topics I learned in lectures. It all became a puzzle in which I was trying to understand how their identity influenced what they were doing in their lives and how mine was changing in the new environment.
One stereotypical perception of Ireland through the American lens of identity is that they are less efficient or lazier since they do not employ the same perception of time as we do. To them, time is not money, but it is a place where we exist and everything that needs to happen will happen eventually. At first, this can be frustrating. Why are the buses always late? Why are people always late? But it takes time to appreciate their approach to time. Their country and society keep moving forward so I hardly would consider this laziness.
The most important lesson I walked away from Ireland with was that identity is not static and it is a something to consider as it changes your view on experiences, people, and cultures.