Welcome to Pieces of Life

Hello everyone, I am Brandon Rios and I am a Sophomore in College. I was born in New York City and lived in Harlem so everything was very diverse making every corner I turn different from the last. I will admit though, the person I am today is almost a completely different person than who I used to be. When I was younger, I used to stick with what everyone else thought and I just went along with the flow of life. I made into my own personality into what people wanted,  just to try and fit in and not be the odd ball out. It was not until my last year of middle school that I started to realize I was trapped into this mindset that I was afraid of changing and I was afraid of not being “normal.” It was during the time that I learned to let myself become free. I started doing things I thought I would never like such as writing, which I ended up loving. Once I started writing, I realized how much I “hated” it just because people mentioned how boring it is for them to write essays and writing in school. This may have been my own turning point in life as I started to gain my own passions for things. Once I entered high school, I started to try out new things for myself such as trying out new foods and watching new shows. As part of my journey, I learned that I love things like anime, games, writing, and trying out new foods. At first, when I thought of these things I thought, “Wow, I’m a pretty basic person.” This thought would plague my mind because I did not want this view of being plain or basic but slowly, I started to realize that none of that really matters. For me, what matters most is how happy I am and how open I am to doing things. There are many things I have said, “I would never do that” to, and I realized how much that closes my worldview. I want to be able to try the most of what I can as I think I will be losing out in that experience if I don’t. Some things I have done since to open up my horizon is riding rollercoasters since falling is one of my biggest fears. Even though I am still afraid of falling, I still got to enjoy some special moments with friends. Even with food, I will go out of my way to try that one thing that everyone else is weirded out by just to have that experience. It is an odd lifestyle but, I think it definitely helps define who I am and gives me more things to laugh, cry, or talk about in the future. My hope is to inspire people to do things that are different from their normal, get people to talk about the things they like freely, or just start going to experience life in a new perspective.