The Self Through Self Examination

“How is one to know and define oneself? From the inside- within a context that is self-defined, from a grounding in a community… or from the

I am Allison Zelinskas, daughter, granddaughter, cousin, Ohioan, friend, only child, athlete and more. I am unique because there is no one else like me. All the labels above make who I am as an individual. Self-concept is “The relatively stable set of perceptions each individual hold of herself or himself” (Ronald Adler, 2015). For the purpose of this paper, I put myself into four categories, culture, gender, reflected appraisal, and social comparison. The four categories combined will give you a picture of who I am as an original. I picked these four categories because I felt I could share this information about myself. These categorizes have built my self-confidence and self-esteem.

In C.D. Wright’s complex investigation called One Big Self, the author twists around different views and social norms of convicts by exposing the side of prisoners that not many think about. This piece proves to be a culture shock, because of the twisted message of prisoners having a soft side, along with the unique style and conventions that the writing is delivered through with the odd layout of stanzas, fragmented quotes, and different fonts. The bizarre environment of the prison from which C.D. Wright finds her information proves to be rare and original because she uses her book as a metaphor to relate to the prisoners, which no other author has completed before. When reading One Big Self, readers feel that the book is hard to approach and not easy to understand because the tone is not accessible. By using this type of style, the author relates her writing to how people identify and relate with criminals, like those in

  1.  Discovering the Self – How do we perceive ourselves and our interactions with others?

Humans are judgmental creatures. One of our most significant philosophy is “not judging a book by its cover”, which examines our habit to judge. We did not purposely develop this questionable characteristic; we seem to have been with this evolutionary trait. We judge everything as a survival instinct to protect ourselves; the perception we create from our personal opinions determine whether we believe something is friendly or foe. As with everything, we judge ourselves, and we tend to be our biggest critic. We constantly judge ourselves, but why? People have referred to this type of judgement as self-esteem. Self-esteem is measured by how positive we view ourselves: the more positive our perception of our self, the higher our self-esteem and

We all need to see our version of our reality reflected back to us by others. It takes an exceptional person to retain their understanding of their identity when others question it, deny it or even set out to destroy it. Many of us cannot withstand such an assault on our sense of self, submitting to the strong, dominating personalities who want to shape the world in their own image. However, it is not only others who have the capacity to bring our fragile sense of reality undone; maintaining one’s self belief also requires withstanding the doubts of self.

My gut reaction about my style and way of being during counseling session has changed. For example, certain things came along so natural and others were and are still in transition. In the counseling process certain techniques (e.g., exploring, silence, restatements, and probing questions) with already in my tool kit without even knowing they were skills. Then, other techniques such as guiding the client through insight, immediacy, and homework strategies started of f as challenges. Perhaps, it was just feeling comfortable using these techniques in a more natural way. At first, I kept second guessing myself by

There are many aspects of a self-directed, intrinsically motivated, active learner. After reviewing the readings from this week, there are a few that stand out as being essential. This person will take initiative. It is one of the most important aspects of this type of person as the first step is usually the hardest. Enjoying learning, and having a high degree of curiosity is very important especially to the intrinsically motivated individual. These aspects provide the internal motivation that helps spark the initiative to begin another task. Also in this category is having a strong desire to learn or change. The desire to improve oneself is

Throughout Rudolfo Anaya's novel, Bless Me, Ultima, Anaya presents the reader with the complications and difficulty of cultural identity and in the end suggests that a person can draw from several cultural traditions instead of just one in particular. The main character, Antonio, is the guide to Anaya's lesson. Antonio's parents, Ultima, and even his town present him with different situations and ideas that contributes to his identity.

However, identify is argued to no longer be about distinguishing who you are as a person because of how people are struggling to find their true selves. People are left to wander around in the world so that they can go through times that can help them shape who they are, who they want to be, or who should be in the future. We want to be able to have some sense of belonging in the world and we do so by interacting with friends that share the same common interests or self-presentations. This way, we are able to self-realize and reflect on the person we are becoming over time in relation to the roles we previously held in society so we can adjust accordingly. Such individuals are illustrated to be “self-reflective” because this gives them the prerogative to make their own life choices without the influences of others impacting them. On the other hand, we find ourselves letting other people make such decisions for us. We try to deflect these attempts, yet we let it happen anyway as a result of those negative influences because of a sense of not belonging, being accepted, or impressing friends so that they believe you are this type of person. This innately allows us to seek our social identity and what role we want to bring to the group. Indeed, we can state that we can learn and be

     Two things can happen when we are required to base our definition of “self” on others.  One can take others’ ways of living and thinking, process them, and formulate his or her own definition, independent of anyone else.  Or, one can use the relationships he or she has with other people on which to base their own definition of self, thus making him or her dependent on those other people.  As young people, we learn and take in all we can through the world, our experiences, and relationships with other people.  From there, we grow and establish our own identities, our own “selves”, in response to those interactions with others.  This definition is continually growing and progressing as we evolve as people, interacting with different people in different environments and

It is hard to determine if self-examination is biased due to outside opinion, or because any personal perspective ourselves may be lacking insight. Generally though, people do not think they are something they are not, or vice versa, without cause. Many statements I may make about myself are determined through self-exploration, and many are realized after hearing the passing comments of others`. However, I like to believe that I know myself best. The 20 sentence quiz taken in class convinces me more so when I notice most of what I say about myself would not be known by others unless I told them. The most notable self-made comments on the list being that I am anxious and queer, whereas saying that I am friendly is easily observable.

Before taking this course my writing styles and habits were very different. I was the typical procrastinator because I would wait until the night before a paper was due to start it. This did not allow me enough time to properly proofread everything, which resulted in getting points deducted for simple grammatical errors that could have been avoided if I would have had the time to proofread. My writing styles have many strengths and weaknesses and I have been able to improve my writing because of them. I have learned from my strengths and weaknesses how to become a better writer.

Giving an Account of Oneself, a compelling piece of work written by Judith Butler, digs deep into what it means to give an account of oneself and how it is nearly, if not entirely, impossible to do such an activity without becoming “a social theorist” (Butler 8). Butler states “the story of my origin I tell is not one for which I am accountable, and it cannot establish my accountability,” (Butler 37) since the story is always changing. We are not able to give our accounts as the accounts we give will always be told in different lights and we, as beings, are always changing as the norms around us change. The sense of being ties into us not being the same person we were when we came into being, and nor are we the same being as when we begin to tell the story of our origin of being. However, other notable influences, such as Levinas, believe that fully exposing our origin of being would act as a sort of “surplus” (Levinas 79) meaning those we expose our origin of being to will be so overwhelmed with the situation that we would never be able to give an account of ourselves overall. Levinas’ views coincides with Butlers’ on the topic of norms and how we will never be able to act outside of norms when he states, “the moment I realize that the terms by which I confer recognition are not mine alone… I am, as it were, disposed by the language that I offer” (Levinas 26).

Self concepts begins in childhood but it continues to develop throughout life. As we observe how other people react to us, we modify our “self.” The “self” is never a finished project, and it continues to change as our life takes different turns. Our “self” reacts to the environment that we are in.