Where am I in these stages?

What stage am I at? What is my current, main priority in my life? These questions seem pretty strightforward to answer, but there is a lot more beneath the surface of these questions. Other questions you have to answer before you can even begin to answer those questions. Questions like:

1. What do I absolutely put first in my life?
2. Who do I absolutely put first in my life?
3. Why do I put these first in my life?
4. When did this change, and when will it change again?
5. etc

I would love to be able to honestly say that I put school first, but that is not true. It ranks in my top 3, but not number 1. Things I put first in my life, and have always put first in my life are my relationships. My releationship with my immediate family, close family, and my boyfriend. I've always grown up very, very close to my family on my mother's side. So if there is something that is going wrong in my family it always takes first place. I have a cousin who has put this to a test. His addiction has put a huge strain on my, and my family's life. His addiction has kept us up at night, in hospital rooms, on late night telephone calls, and much more. So like I said, it would be great, easy answer to this question, but from what is seen above, its not that simple.
School is very important to me as well. It too takes away my weekends, ability to go on spontaneous trips, but will be so worth it at the end. I will be so glad that I stayed up all night on essays, reports, and projects, instead of going to Mexico for example.This recognition of gratefulness seems far away but I'm postive it will be there.

Understanding what stage I am in my life is a very interesting question to ponder. It is interesting as an observer of my own life and others around me, both in my peer group and others. It can be frustrating to try and decide where 'I fit in' in the various stages we have learned. We were told in class that you don't go tyo bed in one stage and wake up in another complete new one in the morning. The stages overlap, or in the case ofErikson's stages, some people may not make it to a certain stage because of happenings in their life.

In class we talked about the stage we see ourselves in right now. I see myself in stage 5 and 6. I still see myself in 5 (Identity vrs. Identity Confusion) because I am still trying new things, seeing what I like and don't like and so on.  I am in a commited relationship right now but not quite ready to be married, kindof like it is my ease into stage 6. Where I see myself in 10 years is very different than where I am, and see myself right now. One girl in our group discussion felt frustrated at these stages because she saw herself in so many of the stages, and knew people that had never been married or wanted to. She mentioned that this set of stages of human development are very limited in some ways. It is a very good basic framework for much of the population, but cannot be said for the whole, just the same as all of the other stages we have learned in class.

I enjoyed the fact that Erikson's theory was not solely based on thinking, but on the human as a whole. I find the brain and mind fascinating. Why we say things, so things and not others. Although I found his theory somewhat broad, it does still cause a deeper thinking and better understanding of what's happening, and more importantly, understanding what will be happening in my classroom as a teacher.