Self Reflection

Peoples appearances in todays society is based upon the clothes they decided to wear that morning, the hairstyle they spent hours on doing and the hours that they would never get back deciding what pattern would look cute to wear on the outside of their skin, bedazzled with sterling silver. With no anticipation of being stereotyped people continuously repeat these actions in the purpose of self satisfaction or expression. The two articles referred to in this essay provides personal experiences of the causes in self reflection decisions in addition to a medical perspective on why sometimes the risk outweighs the rewards.

From the ripe age of four years old, I was told I was smart. I had just tested out of Kindergarten 5 which was a shock for my teachers as they thought that because of my age I was not emotionally ready. Because of this line of thinking, the administrators contemplated on whether or not to let me skip to first grade. My parents were furious and even put me in a new school for a little bit. However, eventually the school consented because I did after all pass the test. From then on, I knew I had something to prove. I had to prove that my age was not a determining factor on whether or not I would continue to prosper academically. It was from that moment on, I would always be held to a higher standard academically. It was at the moment my journey began.

Remember that time you felt passionately about something. An exciting desire to do or be something of your pure uninfluenced interest. Now do you also recall that time of doubt and criticism of yourself? But why? Why are we so quick to dissolve our own dreams and aspirations? In three key points, I will attempt to decipher this psychological anomaly called self-limitation and we can overcome its filters. Why this topic is important to me is because it is something I certainly struggle with and it is something we all have experienced. It is what holds us from becoming more than we can be and more than we want to be, which end the end is happy.

Starting from a very young age, before preschool, I hated crayons. I exhibited myself with fine art skills. I always cut out shapes and various images perfectly, along the thick black borders and colored completely inside the lines. In my 5 year-old-mind, crayons symbolized everything undesirable in the world. The dull wax lines left by the crayon when I drew was always uneven and bumpy, so it was nearly impossible to color completely inside the lines. The crayons always smelled like burnt rubber mixed with expired cheese and would break if I put a bit too much pressure on them. After every use, they would leave a permanent smell on my fingers and the wax was difficult to scrub off. They were absurdly hard to sharpen, even with the special sharpener that came in the crayon box, to get them back to the way they had come out of the box. I have felt the need to push myself to be perfect in every way possible. Through my preoccupation for perfection, I have learned the unfortunate consequences of attempting to make an abstract ideal a reality, finding that it not only prevents me from enjoying aspects of life that all people should experience but also keeps me from getting the satisfaction of fulfilling the unrealistic goals I have set for myself.

“. . . at every time and in every place, God draws close to man. He calls man to seek him, to know him, to love him with all his strength.”

As a young child, I experienced an immense amount of love and care from my family. My mother cared for me the majority of the time as a child, as she was a stay-at-home mom. Having siblings, I sometimes thought that I was not sufficiently being listened to or given enough attention. However, looking back on it, we were all given an equal amount of attention as children. Occasionally one of us would have an event or situation happening in our lives that required more attention and as any child would, I got jealous because I felt like I should always be the center of attention. In elementary school, I was not able to easily make friends of my own age. Instead, I would bond with my teachers and the surrounding adults. I would label myself as a mixture of a secure connector and a pleaser. I am usually able to easily communicate my feelings and describe my own strengths and weaknesses. However, I also constantly feel like I need to do everything right in order to please the people around me. As a result of having great parents and mentors in my life, God has been able to evidently care for me through them. God was able to take the times that I struggled with as a child in elementary school and use them to my advantage as I got older, by allowing me to communicate at a higher level with people.

Enrolling in EDUC 473 Teacher as a Researcher I had an idea of what we were going to be doing as I just finished up EDUC 373, as now we are at our final stages of the course what my idea was has complex turned into an understanding of knowledge. The first class we were asked what is a researcher and how can it be imagined? It was broke down into scientific and interpretive approaches, and the definition of Sylvia had for interpretive approach truly has stuck with me throughout the entire course, which is “truth is subjective, and all knowledge is created by interpretation.” (Kind,2017). Each portfolio entry we have done has been instructed but the interpretation of how each individual is subjective through their lens of thought has been a showcase of their entry. I feel as though Rinaldi states it beautifully as “information, though necessary, is not sufficient for this depth of understanding. Explanations, which are also indispensable, are still not enough for true understanding.Depth of understanding involves the ability to experience the curiosity, passions, joys and angers of others with a process of empathy, perception and identification, of human understanding”.(p.4). Noticing things was another major concept I learned in this course. Acknowledging my morning habits, to being able to reflect back on a image taken and though being in the image nothing things again looking at the printed image. The concept of a teacher as a researcher I feel we were taught its about

. Various stories also expressed admiration at my courage to perform on stage and noted how I was not afraid to put himself self out there and been seen. It was also expressed how I was admired for not being afraid to express my opinions and ideas while at the same time listening to others. More than anything, it was greatly expressed how often I go out of his comfort zones to grow or achieve greater success, a habit that I wasn’t even fully aware of. Nothing in these responses mentions my shyness, or self-doubt proving that I am much more confident, bold, and capable that I normally have viewed myself.

As I entered the stage of adolescence a lot started to change. I experienced a transition when I started puberty. I started my period at the age of twelve and soon after I hit a growth spurt, grew a large chest, and began to look more like my age group did. This plays into Erikson’s fifth stage identity versus role diffusion. With two forms self-isolation and lost in the crowd. I believe I was lost in the crowd because my social identity was rooted in my close friend group. I did everything with them and barely went a day or two without being with them. It was nice to always just follow with the crowd but when I was put into situations where I was not with them I felt a little lost. I can remember I was at a leadership convention for a few days and I did not know anyone and had a miserable couple of days because it was hard for me to talk to people I was not used to. This also was Foreclosure in Marcia’s theory of identity development. I made a commitment to my friends at a young age and from then on I never explored what my identity could be with other people or on my own, I just made the commitment right away. At this point I started to feel a little depressed because of situations going on around me. As we entered the teenage years my friend group started to split up. We all got into different sports and activities that took up most of our time. My friends also started to do things that I was not only uncomfortable with but my parents would never allow me to do.

Throughout this course I have had not only the opportunity to learn new ideas and new ways to better myself as a person, but also reflect on a lot of stuff I have already learned through my experiences in life. I have been able to learn a lot about myself by being open to looking at my flaws and committing to put in effort to change. I feel like this course helped me think about a lot of things I hadn't really given thought to before, so it helped me identify problems in areas I had never even looked for problems in.

First, in relation to the work, I believe that if I cannot make better efforts on normal tasks, even the trivial one, then how can I expect to do more challenge things in the future? Everyone wants to reveal their abilities and to be famous including me. But, maybe I should focus on small things and prepare for big things’ coming. If I do not want to do something routine and trivial, I can figure out the creative method to be more efficient. I believe that the companies and managers would like employees could make more contribution in a smart way and save more cost and time.

In our daily life's family members, friends, sales people, and stores try to convince us to buy or sign up for a certain product. It is not obvious what tactics the merchant is utilizing because we are so curious to see if the product is rightful to use or beneficial to use. In growing older more people approach me to sign up for insurances, credit cards, cars and mobile phones in doing this because they see me as a young woman. As a result, they think I will comply to what they are asking of me. In taking this class learning about the weapons of influence which are conformity, scarcity, commitment, authority and liking I paid attention more to the persons words and actions towards me.

The lenses of privilege and oppression that I have been presented to have caused me to self-reflect and be more aware of what revolves around me. They’ve influenced me on learning a bit more about myself because I’ve always had trouble finding things that make me feel oppressed and usually didn’t find anything to fit in that area, until about two weeks ago. My ethnicity, my sex, my gender, my status, my identity didn’t feel oppressed, but I tried very hard looking for something and finally found something I can point my finger at and that would be my age and my religion. I’m a young adult, 20 years of age and lack work experience and when looking for a job I believe this has always come to bite my back. It took me a whole year to finally obtain my very first job after handfuls of submitted applications. It sucked honestly. As for my other intersecting identities, though society says I should be and feel oppressed, I believe they’re a privilege to me instead. My family’s status has opened doors to me for educational assistance. Thanks to that I receive my financial aid money, was granted the opportunity of joining the EOPS program at my previous college, and was granted rented books from the school for two semesters there. This didn’t oppress, but instead helped me move forward at a faster pace. Thanks to my ethnicity I’m bilingual who speaks and writes fluent spanish and english. My sex has oppressed me within my family. I was prevented from involving myself in sports like

What is a soul? My old Pastor told me that humans are on this world to have dominion over all creatures whether creeping or crawling. This statement translated from Christian teachings in the Bible. However, what makes a person believe that souls solely belong to humanity? The idea of that statement seems rather faulty. According to Merriam-Webster, a soul is “the spiritual or immaterial part of a human being or animal, regarded as immortal.” Since animals and humans both have a soul, shouldn’t we be equals? Although scientists argue that animals can’t self-reflect, animals should be our equals because they have the same sensibility we have and as a matter of course animals have souls; therefore, as animated beings, they should have rights.

“No matter how good you are, someone is always going to be against you. But never let them be the limit of your success,” is quote stated by Terry Mark, yet is one life lesson I had to learn it the hard way. Moreover, since I can remember I been more overweight than my school peers. Therefore, even was against me everybody never forgot to mention that the bigger I am the less successful or smart I was going to be. This is when I had to stand up and show to all of them that I was better than them.