The Forward Review

She looked at me and gave a mocking laugh. She probably didn’t mean to be rude, but couldn’t help it.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing.”

I didn’t push and went back to my book.

“You’re such a hypocrite sometimes, Iman,” she said after a couple of minutes.

It caught me off guard.

I closed the book, feeling the spine stiffen under my palm. It wasn’t anger that rose first, just a quiet, tired confusion.

“What do you mean?” I already knew the answer because it wasn’t the first time I was accused of it.

I am always surprised, perhaps even fascinated, by how easily people place a label on someone after the smallest glimpse into their life. Without trying to understand you, without asking for context, without even giving you the grace of a conversation. No. They won’t even offer an opinion; they’ll offer a verdict. They decide who you are and hold that decision as the unquestionable truth of your existence.

“This isn’t who you were.”

“You’ve changed.”

“You’re so easily influenced.”

“You’re forgetting your roots.”

Accusations disguised as concern. They say it when we soften, when we harden, when we learn, when we unlearn. They say it as if growing is a betrayal, as if evolving is something shameful, as if staying frozen in the version they first knew is the only proof of loyalty.

“Hypocrite” is a heavy word, and I don’t think people use it the way it’s meant to be used. Most of the time, they use it when they see you shift, when you behave differently in a different setting, when a new version of you steps forward. They forget that human nature isn’t a single hallway with one open door; it’s a house full of rooms. Some rooms are bright and open, others are quiet or unfinished. And we step into different rooms depending on who we’re with, what we feel, and what the moment asks of us.

This, I believe, is the self in flux, changing, responding, adjusting its edges because life keeps pushing and pulling. But somehow, adaptability gets twisted into pretending. Any shift in how you speak, act, or think becomes “losing yourself.” Why? Why is changing automatically seen as being fake?

I’ve heard the same lines my whole life:

You’re a small town girl, don’t dream too big.

Who do you think you are to want that life?

Those hobbies aren’t for people like you.

Your friends don’t match your background.

Stay in your lane.

And it gets exhausting.

At what point does “where I’m from” stop being used as a weapon against who I’m trying to become? Why does my background get to sit in the judge’s seat of every choice I make? Why is poverty or being from a small town treated like a permanent stamp on my forehead, one I’m not allowed to outgrow or move beyond?

I’m not trying to erase anything. I’m proud of where I come from. It shaped me. But that doesn’t mean it should define every version of me for the rest of my life. It doesn’t mean I can’t want more, or choose differently, or step into rooms no one expects me to. Fluidity is not inconsistency. It’s humanity.

Because identity, in truth, is discovery, not deceit. Every stage of life, every environment, every relationship reveals a new door within us. Sometimes we walk through it willingly; sometimes life pushes us in. But each room teaches us something: a softness we didn’t know we had, a strength we didn’t expect, a truth we weren’t ready to face. And none of this is performance. None of this is pretending. It’s simply the process of being, of meeting ourselves again and again in different light.

For a very long time, I felt like I was standing at the intersection of all the people others expected me to be, always on standby, dividing myself into different parts, giving everyone what they wanted or needed from me.

And in doing so, not knowing which part is true and which is preposterous.

I’ve been accused of hypocrisy more times than I can count, and it always feels unfair. If I am no longer the person I used to be, why is it seen as betrayal? Sometimes it gets hard to breathe. The weight of everyone else’s expectations presses down until the edges of who I am begin to blur. Until I can’t tell where I end and the world begins.

The truth is, human nature is vast. It cannot be captured in one idea, one label, one expectation. And yet I wonder; when I shift with the light, when I wear a different skin, am I still me? Or… after all this time, have I betrayed myself?