When I am with her, talking, cooking, arguing, I only see my daughter and I am colorblind. When I look at photographs of two of us, I am often stunned at stark contrast in our looks. It is only then that I see what world sees. Her luminescent deep bronze skin, large dark eyes and exquisite long dark hair is sharply contrasted with my own green eyes, short blond hair, and pale white complexion. Sometimes it takes me a moment to recognize two of us and to absorb visual difference we present.

Helping her come to grips with her Indian looks in a Caucasian family has taken awareness on her and our family's part. When she was eight, I took her on a pilgrimage to India. I wanted her to know her heritage and to be proud of it. Young and still unsure of whom she was; she was concerned about how they would know she was American. Without thinking I answered, "By way you walk." Not totally trusting my response, (which turned out to be true) she insisted on wearing emblematic blue jeans entire time we were there. I worried that those who saw her would think she was not well cared for. I was embarrassed and wanted her to wear a dress. She won, and made sure she flaunted uniform of her adopted country for all to see.

What if I asked you to tell me about yourself? How would you respond? More than likely you would respond by listing your roles and positions followed by your interest.

So, who are you? Do you know? Are you merely a name, or are you much more?

We often fail to realize that our roles and positions help to define who we are. For example, I am a student, daughter, educator, consultant, and guardian.

DEFINING YOUR ROLES AND POSITIONS

Roles and positions are interrelated but have different meanings. Roles are different parts we play when we interact with other people. Positions are our locations within a collection of interconnected roles. A role includes duties or obligations of position.

In order to define your roles you must first understand that for every position there is an expectation of what should be behavior of a person who holds that position. For example, educators are expected to teach, assist students, grade papers, etc.

Defining your roles and positions help you to better manage them and maximize your role performance.

MANAGING ROLES AND POSITIONS

Every individual learns that certain behaviors are expected of him as an occupant of a particular position. In other words, he learns role associated with position.

Everyone occupies a number of different positions and therefore has a number of different roles. However, few people learn how to effectively manage them all. Usually ineffective management is due to ambiguous understanding of role expectations and/or burden of managing behaviors associated with multiple roles.