Final Project: Personal Narrative

How have you seen the purpose and meaning of your life evolve over the past 5 years? What events
have led to this evolution? Describe how one of the theories from your text might explain this
evolution. Use specific concepts and terminology from the theory in your answer.

The purpose and meaning of my life has changed greatly in the past, actually 10 years. I had a fairly
thriving business on the internet with a music magazine that I had built from the ground up called, The
SlamCity Rock and Roll News. Banduras social learning theory can explain that time of my life pretty
well. I knew nothing about the music business nor did I know anything about the magazine business, but
I did have a friend Chris who worked at a magazine in Hollywood, California called The Rock City News. I
would travel to Los Angeles 3 or 4 Times a year to visit Chris for 2 to 3 weeks at a time. While I was
visiting Chris in Hollywood I would tag along to work with him and intently watch what was going on and
how things operated at the magazine. This set up the perfect environment for observational Learning.
I observed all aspects of the day to day business of a music magazine first hand and soaked up the
information like a sponge. Chris was and still is a reporter for the magazine known as The Prince of
Darkness and when a show featuring an artist the magazine wanted him to cover and review would
come to town, Chris would locate the record label that the particular artist was signed to and give them
a call. He would then find out who the publicist for the band was and get his or her contact information.
Chris would then contact that publicist, identify himself and the publication he was with and send the
publicist a, media coverage request form . My retention process was on high alert because by
watching this request process I was able to duplicate one of my own when I got back home to Northern
California. I wanted to model everything I was seeing at the Rock City office because I was highly
motivated to do it myself. All the motivations Bandura talks about were there in spades for me. The
external reinforcement, which I saw at the concerts, I attended with Chris. How everyone treated him
like a VIP and crowds of people would part like the Red Sea when he walked through them. But unlike
Moses who allegedly held a staff to part the waters, Chris had his big laminated Backstage Pass.
People would stare at him with envy and the most beautiful girls at the show would just walk up to him
and strike up a conversation and buy him drinks. Watching all of this was a bit of vicarious
reinforcement as well. I wanted what Chris had but I did not want to work for someone else to get it.
Those observational experiences at the Rock City news were of the utmost importance in my evolution
into the internet music magazine semi-mogul that I became for the next 8 or nine years. I built The
SlamCity Rock and Roll News from the ground up through, social learning and observation.

What roles have religion, race, culture, family, and gender played the development of your
personality?
Final Project: Personal Narrative


The development of my personality came from my family more than anything else. I believe that our
true personalities usually lie beneath the show we put on for the outside world. That part of our
personalities are affected by mostly outside influences such as culture and social circles telling us how
we are supposed to act in social situations. The core of my personality definitely came from the genetics
and biology I received from my parents. I am very much like my father as Im very outgoing and can
make friend with a total stranger. My father is very musical; He plays the guitar and is a vocalist. I too
sing and have a vast interest in music. I get my compassion for the human condition from my mother
who was always willing to listen to a sob story and lend a bit of motherly advice. My family was
definitely the number one ingredient in the evolution of my personality.


Suppose you might change one of the major episodes of your life (your earliest memory, a turning
point, a high point, or a low point, for example). What change would you make and why?

The moment in my life that I would absolutely change the most without a doubt is the first time I tried
drugs when I was 13 years old. I was in my bedroom studying and there was a little, taptap ..tap at the
window. It was my little brother who asked me to come outside because he wanted to show me
something, I should have kept on studying. That pinpoint moment in the timeline of my life led to 11
years of misery in the grips of a relentless cocaine addiction that stole over a decade of my life. After ten
of those years I ended up in a military style rehabilitation center where I remained for 17 months in
order to get clean. I am happy to say that I am still drug-free after 20 years.