Where does the heart belong?

Gertrude Bonnin's The Soft-Hearted Sioux strikes an interesting theory in regards to cultural expectations. The story told of an Indian male who stepped out of the cultural boundaries but was pulled back in. In the Indian's culture, the male are expected to become a warrior since it signifies a class distinction in that the title of a warrior is considered highly respected and honorable to his family. Another critical aspect of this Native American culture is hunting, which is a common expectation in a man's role. This appeal to gender's role for this culture because the men are suppose to be responsible for hunting to provide the meat/food and protecting the women and their families, while the women are expected to be responsible for household duties such as farming and caring for the husband and children. Nevertheless, the young man in the story "did not grow up the warrior, huntsman, and husband he was to have been." Instead, he went to the missionary school outside the village and it changes his cultural beliefs about the idea of hunting. As a result, he became a religious Christian when he returned to the village. To me, this was a turning point for the young man because he had stepped out of his cultural boundaries but as soon as he had returned home he became challenged with cultural expectations again, where he faced his family's expectations along with his people's expectation of Indian ancestry. Cultural boundaries has a major impact on how you are as a person because depending on what culture you belong to, your belief lies in correlations to your cultural beliefs. Sometimes, cultural beliefs can very limitting factor because it is a collective beliefs system intended to apply to each and every individual descended from a common ancestor, but in reality everyone differs in their beliefs. In the story, the young man was placed in a stressful situation to live up to his families' expectations and becoming a warrior, a huntsman, and a good husband candidate to the women in their village. Additionally, this had also placed him in a tough situation to make a decision about living up to cultural expectations or commit to what he has learned and believes in from the missionary school. I can relate to what the main character in this story has experienced because my cultural expectations has also affected my beliefs and how I choose to live life. It's really a challenge in escaping cultural expectations when it keeps pulling you back, furthermore, its especially harder to live up to someone else's expectations of you. The whole idea of expectations are highly complex because it constantly changes and are constantly challenged by cultural boundaries and beliefs. Living up to your own expectations and having to live up to someone else's expectation at the same time creates an abundant amount of stress, which hinders you from moving forward in life. Like the character in the story, I do feel the need to live up to my parents' expectations but I also wished to escape cultural boundaries and moving forward in my future. Also, I found it is even more difficult to live my life when someone else starts comparing me with another person who are doing exceeding well in their field while I am struggling with mine. I try to look at these situations in a positive way, but it still failed to make sense to me when I compare because everyone have their own strenths and weaknesses so why should someone's success reward me with more miseries for living my life independently?! The Soft-Hearted Sioux strikes a powerful as well as pathos belief in me in regards to cultural identity.