Throughout my life I have come from and created a few identities for myself. Perhaps, the most dominant identities that have been apart of my life are being an athlete and being a family orientated man. In this paper I will write about how my identities have shaped my life. First off I believe my biggest identity is being an athlete. I have played hockey for 13 years and have let hockey practically shape my life. The textbook “Interpersonal Communication” by Sarah Trenholm and Arthur Jensen has a quote about forming identities that can be applied to me “Identities are not always given however, some people create their own identities throughout life by their lifestyle and activities. (45)” That quote can be applied to my own life because I wasn’t born and ready to play hockey. None of my immediate family played and the only reason I started …show more content…
At points I would put what I needed to do in order to succeed in hockey ahead of school because until I was a sophomore in high school I was foolish enough to believe I had a shot of going big in hockey. All of this leads to my main point that I wasn’t born with an athlete identity however, I created one by pursuing a sport I am passionate about and would do anything I can to help myself succeed in it. A scholarly journal essay written by Shaun Boren called The Recreational Sports Journal talks about different athletes and how they had dreams of going big and the youth life certain athletes lived from 6am practices to missing school due to travel for a sport. While reading this journal I couldn’t help but think of myself as I lived a very similar lifestyle. A direct quote being “The horrendous wakeups the fun in the hotel hallways and being yelled at by hotel staff for being to loud all helped shaped the athlete I am today.” I vividly remember getting up at 4:30 on a Saturday morning for a 6am practice, the frequent travel and