<p>I feel like I’ve changed a lot, grown a lot really, during college. I’m definitely not the same person as I was in high school.</p>
<p>Yet every time I go back home for winter break (or summer for that matter), I seem to revert back to my old childish self. I mean in terms of everything, from the way I think to the way I talk. Like my self, my personality, is just a reflection of my environment, and I slip back into my old self when put back into my old environment.</p>
<p>Sometimes I just get so frustrated… when I’m home it’s the same old worries, the same fights, frustrations. I talk to my parents like a child, do the same stupid routines I used to do in high school. After a while it’s like I don’t know who I really am anymore. This is the worst part of winter break.</p>
<p>You may seem to act a bit childish at home, but that’s rather expected since YOU’RE in your home environment. Keep in mind that there is a keen difference between intelligence and personality. You may have grown more as an intellectual, but your personality may have not changed very much. </p>
<p>Btw, are your frustrations and altercations at home just based on simple matters? I mean, if it is, then think twice about it before you attempt to waste your energy on trivial matters. </p>
<p>Times have changed since High School. I feel a bit different than the way I was before too. I remember the times I would just naturally climb to the head and start becoming talkative to other people. I would actually provoke profanity whenever I get p***ed. But these same words have never changed and that is what kept me as the same person until now. I am more mature than before. I’m more determined to be academically successful than previously. I have met new people and only carefully chose my own new friends, but there will not be a lot. I feel like I have gone into another world where I will be passionate. I have realized that society’s expectations consist of frustrations and complications. Yet, I need to say that life wants us to live up to them. I still have a bit of bad habit and bad attitude (not as worse as before when I was in High School), however. My personality has partially changed and I have physically changed as well. But I will still be the same person, but not any different. High School or College, I am still me. This is the cycle of my life.</p>
<p>If anyone needs to also share something else about the past: I am looking forward to reminiscince my High School days by looking for my old classmates when I’m 25. Hopefully, most of them will have grown up too like me.</p>
<p>Yes! I go back tomorrow and feel like i am just starting over again. First semester i grew alot and learned a great deal about myself. Now i am already accustomed to being spoiled at home and am dreading returing.</p>
I would hope that you don’t become less mature over any length of time…</p>
<p>Be realistic. You’ve been away for, what, five months at the most? One does not lose their personality that has been developing for eighteen years in a few months. You’ve been away and now you’re back. I can honestly say that, apart from the knowledge I’ve gained in my first semester of college, I am more or less the same person. The only difference now that I’m home is that I can stay out all night without being lectured and I’m more social.</p>
<p>It’s definitely not about acquiring new knowledge in college, and then having that knowledge not be as accessible once you’re home.</p>
<p>Here’s just one example. Things in my house are usually settled by shouting and emotional posturing. Usually whoever can come up with the loudest and most catchy argument, wins. It’s like being on the O’Reilly Factor. Obviously, very irrational all around. </p>
<p>In college, I’ve accustomed to think and thereby speak more rationally. It’s almost like a spiritual journey, my becoming able to talk about things, even emotionally charged or controversial things, in a calm manner. I feel it’s influenced all areas of my life, so much that I not only talk to my peers and superiors differently, I talk to myself differently – I think differently.</p>
<p>But when I come back home, what’s second nature to me in college, becomes a distant memory. Even if I want to avoid the inanities, I can’t. My brain is back to its old self, and freezes up when I try to reason. It’s so scary that I feel being home is a bad influence.</p>
<p>I’ve been in college over a year, and I’ve experienced tremendous growth – or so I thought. But if I can so easily go back to being the kid I was before, then that says something about how much I’ve grown, or how malleable people in general are.</p>
<p>You’re putting way too much thought into this. It’s the same idea as acting slightly different around different friends. Your environment changes your behavior, it’s natural. Stop thinking of it in terms of maturity because this is not about your level of maturity.</p>