Vainglory Formation Experiment

     Sure, some of us have this great confidence within ourselves about looking great, but that does not hold true for everyone. I understand the pain or disgust, or even disappointment one feels when they look in the mirror and say, “I wish I could change this or that about myself”. Although this piece is written about the author’s life, it holds meaning and connects with for many people; one only has to dig deep enough to find one. For me, it was to realize what is important in life can change, adapt and that we must explore our inner selves and find our own path in life.

Appearance has a massive amount of importance in today's society, and that brings on a magnificent amount of insecurity in today's youth. What people see and how they react to their reflection in a mirror will vary. How someone views oneself is a very important subject to that person's state of mind, this can lead to a person being confident or being very insecure. In the novel Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson, the mirrors display Melinda's frustrations towards herself, such as a negative appearance. On page 37 you can almost feel her negative reaction from her reflection. “Seeing her reflection in the window, she was struck dumb her face is streaked with tears. (36)”

Rilke had the insight that every person had the beauty within their inner selves despite the opinions others may bestow upon them (Rilke 36). This psychological humanistic insight prevents people from losing their confident self-esteems. Likewise, it prevents people from being depressed due to negative self-image. I would just suggest to keep apply this insight into real life situations at a minimum, to avoid arrogance among ourselves.

For many young adults, appearance and physical strengths and abilities are an important part of self –image. When your appearance changes or you aren’t able to do the things you once did, you may feel self-conscious. You may even feel insecure about changes that others can’t see, including

Why does America have so many girls who struggle with body image? Body image is the way one sees oneself and how one imagines how one looks .(7)Having a positive body image means that, most of the time one sees oneself accurately,one feels comfortable in one’s body and one feels good about how one looks.(7)In today’s time Americans are vain in one’s appearance,meaning we feel having a thin body we are more accomplished, successful and beautiful. Growing up in a time where appearance is everything to an individual can easily make a young girl self-conscious of her body image. There are three parts that make up body image: the mental picture one has of oneself: our belief of how others see us; and how comfortable and confident one is in one bodies. (DiBattista)In our society people associate thinness with beauty, power, and health, as well as self worth.(DiBattista)In America there are too many girls who have negative judgement on their bodies, which causes low self esteem and other dangers such as eating disorders.

I’ve been wanting to change the way I feel about myself or mainly how I judge myself about my appearance. I don’t care about what people tell me about my own appearance just what I like about it. I judge myself on how I look today. Sometimes I decide I don’t want to socialize thought I didn’t come to school dressed properly In a way that I enjoy how I look. I want to be able to convince myself I shouldn’t care about what I’m wearing just as long as I’m happy I’ll be fine. I also want to lose weight not because of what people make fun of it or I’m insecure about it, but I just want to stop the problem before it starts. I’m generally happy being the way I am even though lots of my family members want me to participate in sports or do something

Looking in the mirror can often lead to many hateful, or very horrible thoughts about how someone may feel they look. Many times young people believe that their peers are more attractive or smarter then they are. The opinions of others should not matter, everyone is created differently. People come in many different sizes, looks, and personalities, which is what makes them unique. So next time they look in the mirror, they should remind themselves that they were made to be special and that is something that no one can take away from them. Many different things contribute to ones self image. One affective tool to use is affirmations. Affirmations should be written down and said out loud frequently for it to be affective. It needs to be in

The critical issue with becoming too concerned about one’s self-presentation is that your mind will never be able to rest. It is unhealthy to be consistently worried about you self-presentation in front of others. According to Swinson (2011), “One study found that one in four people is depressed about their body, another found that almost a third of women say they would sacrifice a year of life to achieve the ideal body weight and shape, and almost half of girls in a recent survey think the pressure to look good is the worst part of being female.” This evidence depicts the idea that people pay a great amount of attention to how they look, which is normal in our society. What is not normal is to be too worried about how one presents themselves

Think of a specific situation where you tend to feel very low self-esteem, such as talking in public or even talking to members of the opposite sex. Make yourself aware of the first picture that you see

Psychologists say that babies recognise themselves in a mirror reflection when they are 8 months, but for a girl the mirror means a lot of things. In their childhood girls look themselves into a mirror to see how they resemble their mothers, yet in their teenagehood they expect to find their personalities, but finally in their adulthood they look backwards in their history to see what they have become.

As a little girl, I always get compliments on my looks from my parents friends. However, since I grew up to be extremely shy and with introvert tendencies, that kind of attention was not welcomed. Since I grew up in an environment of compliments, I had become very conscious of my physical appearance. The perfect way to describe this is similar to the Barry Manilow study in chapter 4, that “people in social situations tend to assume that others are paying more attention to them than they really are.” (p. 169) Although I felt a little bit

Backing away from the mirror I suddenly felt unhappy, almost disgusted at what I saw staring back at me. I had never felt this way about myself, understanding that I didn't have the perfect appearance but I always thought that I liked myself.

In this day and age, the epidemic of these so called ‘beauty’ standards is only getting worse and worse. Because of photo modification, low self esteem in regular everyday people is starting to become something that is nearly considered normal. Today, 42% of girls from age 5-8 want to be skinnier, 52% of girls aged 9 to 13 feel better when they are dieting and by the age of 17, 78% of girls are unhappy with their own bodies. Think about

While discussing Jacque Lacan’s The Mirror Stage for the second time this semester I started thinking about my own younger brother’s introduction to the mirror a few years ago. As I was trying to remember this interaction, I came to the realization that his first interaction with his “self” wasn’t with a mirror at all- it was actually with an iPhone’s front facing camera- used as a form of distraction while he sat in his highchair. This made start thinking about the fact that the recent generations are the first who do not need a mirror to see their “reflections”, how does that affect them? This is what spurred me to begin thinking about the way the modern day “selfie” relates to this “ideal-I” that Lacan discusses within his Mirror Stage

On the other hand if you see yourself as an individual who can communicate without a problem and you see that you can keep others interested in a given conversations, your reaction is more positive. Through this looking- glass self we develop a “self” concept. Depending on the observations we make concerning the reactions of others we develop feelings and ideas about ourselves. The reflection we see in the mirror is either negative or positive depending on the feedback we get back from those around us. Misjudgments of the reactions of others become part of our “self” concept also the misinterpretations of how others think of us.