Understanding the Self (SCSC 11n)

Parages, Jeric BS MET-1 M729

Final Term Paper

Before partaking in this subject, I am just an ordinary guy with very low self-esteem
who dare to have dreams and goals. However, I only know my goals, but I do not have a
sense of direction and steps to reach that goal. Besides, I do not know my purpose in this
life. I thought my job is my purpose in life, but it is not.

In Sociological Perspective, I was introduced to the ancient philosophers and their

life view. The most relatable philosopher I have met in this module is Socrates. His idea
about the dialect method is simple but very powerful in knowing who we are. This way,
we can judge ourselves without being ashamed of others and have relatively fewer biases
about knowing who we are. I can see myself who is one and integrated with the world like
Buddha; however, I am merged with the world by making it the factor of my purpose while
retaining my identity. In the present time, my purpose is to lend a hand in making the
world a better place by being a meteorologist to help aid the deteriorating environment
we live in. My purpose is parallel with what I wanted to do: to serve my purpose while
living my best life with the best people around me and attain certainty on what I am. When
I am alone, I think about my future more than anything because the world is uncertain,
and I do not know where I am heading. The most important things that are not a product
of my choices are my family, physical self, and social status. Also, the most important
thing that I choose is the course I took, my friends, my essence, and my purpose in life.
May it things or the people around me, I am highly contented with what I have right now.
As Buddha stated, "happiness and unhappiness are just states of the mind.": it is very
crucial to living our lives with contentment, for after contentment comes happiness. On
the other hand, my family, capabilities, and purpose drive me to keep myself motivated in
what I do.
 According to John Donne, no man is an island; thus, we need others to live and
know our identity. In my mind, I cherish my family and friends the most, for they influence
me to be a better individual while living a simple yet happy life. However, I show different
faces: I face my family as a more mature and independent individual capable of loving
and caring for myself, my nephews and nieces. On the other hand, I am bubbly, energetic,
and a clown whenever I am with my friends. However, according to symbolic
interactionism, I am not a fake person, but I am a person who performs the different side
of me based on the person I interact with. However, using social imagination, I found out
that I am not friendly with my neighbors because of the insufficient action of the
government for the drug campaign, which leads to my childhood friends being addicted
to illegal drugs. To make my future brighter, I always connect to someone who can
positively influence me, such as my family and science high school batchmates. I love
them so much, and I feel like I am young again, interacting and recalling my genuine
memories with them. Even though the pandemic is going on, I interact with them through
social media and still discover a new side of me. On the other hand, I do not want to
attach myself to my childhood friends because they sometimes bully me and pressure
some of my neighbors to use illegal drugs.

On the other hand, my home, Cebu Province, is known for its beautiful tourist spots
and unique heritage and culture. I am proud of our delicacies like Hopia de Cebu,
Rosquillos, and unique tourist spots like Tingko Beach and Osmena Peak. This is why I
inherited the cultural practice of being a wanderlust, and I think that is the collective
identity of a Cebuano. I inherited it from my friends and family in my community who want
to travel and discover new ones in our province. Cebu has a very long history of
acculturation from the colonizers, which made Cebuano known as Cebuano today. That
is why the people in my locality and I enculturated many cultures, such as speaking
Sinugbuanong Bisaya, eating every meal with rice, primarily works on agricultural lands,
and most Roman Catholics. These beliefs are handed down from our predecessors, and
it partly defines who I am. While being a Cebuano enculturated with different cultures, I
also adopted some Korean culture, like listening to K-pop music and watching Korean
dramas, which leads me to use chopsticks, eat spicy foods, and instantly noodles. There
are different cultures to adapt to, and they may be good and evil. I follow something
depending on the effect of the culture in my life for me, and that is why I cannot choose
and prefer only one culture because I like to adapt and fuse some of my local cultures
and other cultures using technology. Now that I am studying far from home, VSU, I
experienced a culture shock when the online classes commence, and it felt weird because
some of my classmates are not speaking the Bisaya language.

The Big-5 personality test has been accurate for describing the authentic or real
self. The test describes me as a person who is open to experience and adjusts their
behavior to suit others. In my mind, I think these attributes fit my real self because, based
on the test, I am more of an introvert, and I have this personality to observe people and
treat them on how they treat me. Also, I am a very turbulent person. Having a proactive
and agentic self, the forethought makes me more turbulent because I reflect on every
situation and predict the consequences of every action I wanted to do. Besides, my friends
only see me as an easy-going and happy kid. They also tell me that I am just too selfless,
and I am changing that mindset because when I ponder it a lot, I realized that it is a
negative attribute. However, as a human being capable of thinking and adjusting to the
environment, I ideally would like to be good at public speaking soon. The 'I' or my pure
ego set that up to be slightly extroverted as my ideal self to work with it one step to make
a difference and grow.

While reading and analyzing the self, which consist of the physical and the
extended self, I realized how external factors affect and define who I am, like how physical
appearance does. The extended self with different levels such as things, family,
community, and even social groups is considered part of us. There are many things I
consider to be part of my extended self. However, I would choose a handkerchief because
I sneeze a lot because of my dust and pollen allergies: there is no day that I don't sneeze;
that is why I bring a handkerchief with me all the time. I am a product of acculturation,
and the traits that I find attractive are never consistent, for I like Korean stuff, but I also
like local stuff, which makes me inconsistent. Back in my high school days, I am known
to be the guy who has this bulbous type of nose. I belong to a very conservative
community. However, I do not abide by the ideals of the community who judge beauty as
only having a good body and face figures. I tend to know people first for their traits, to call
them beautiful. For me, beauty is not just the body but is also seen in their personality
and the traits they show.

On the other side of a coin, the sexuality spectrum refers to the idea that people's
sexual identities and orientations are complex and resist easy classification. Learning this
module helped me identify myself as cisgender, for I follow the sense of personal identity
and gender corresponds with their birth sex, which is male. Knowing the spectrum of
human sexuality affects me because it is radical for us to understand what we truly feel
to live life to the fullest. As an adult, I guess feeling pleasure is pretty normal. I do not
want someone to caress my torso because I exhibit aroused when someone does it. I
also feel pleasure around my genitals, so I tend to abstain from acts that trigger it. I also
realized that I am the kind of guy who would not risk doing sexual intercourse, even
though contraceptives are highly available in the market. As a Roman Catholic,
abstinence is the best way to do it. For me, doing something like this at my age would
shatter my future and the future of my partner.

Consumption has been a part of human survival. However, various products and
creative promotions have also been evolving for the past years, affecting our behavior
and perception. Like the example of positive incongruity, I tend to eat low-calorie foods
because I am still not satisfied and heavier than my target weight. According to Maslow's
Hierarchy of Needs, five categories of needs are ordered in a pyramid. However, these
days, I am only focusing on my Esteem needs; that is why I am working and grinding hard
for the school to be able to graduate and feel the accomplishment I want to fulfill. While I
reevaluate my spending habits, I found out that I am an impulsive buyer. I tend to buy my
wants more than my needs. That is why I will now make the 50-30-20 rule, which is to
allocate 50% for my needs, 30% for my wants, and 20% for savings. I am also slowly
learning the stock market and saving to have buying power.

I constantly believed in God and have been thankful for what he has done to my
life. Despite being a believer, I am not a church person, but I always pray for the healing
of the world and the silent battles my family and friends encounter. As I am a believer of
God, it is a given that I also believe in spirits and paranormal activities, which I also
experienced when I was a child. Personally, I have read the book of Victor Frankl titled
Man's Search for Meaning, making his approach to finding the purpose and meaning of
life by logotherapy one of my stress-reliever. I am the type of person who appreciates
solitude to reevaluate everything that I have done to realign myself with my goals.
Whenever I am unsure about my future, I would trace back some of my memories that I
did without knowing it will work out, such as graduating from a science high school, which
was way exhausting than learning in the pandemic. Also, I would think of my family as my
inspiration and be courageous in what I do in building my dream and purpose, which is to
become a meteorologist who can better serve the country. I have diverse friends who
have different beliefs from me. However, we are still good friends now, even though we
have different beliefs and ideologies. As Paul Knitter said and the essence of Religious
Pluralism, we should honor those differences because there is so much to gain from the
wealth of diverse spiritual heritage as faith is a vehicle, not a cage. At the end of the day,
it will only boil down to us reaching peace of mind.

My family and schools, books, friends, news, and other online content shaped my
political ideologies. To be honest, I am a part of a family where all of us are significantly
updated on government-related issues and political systems. Within the family, I am very
vocal about my insights, thoughts, and opinions about politics. However, I unconsciously
cannot express my political thoughts with my friends like what I did with my family besides
respecting my friends' perspective. I only hear their political stand, verify them, and
compare them to what is right and wrong by my standards. In making my standpoint, I
practically read some news and watch tv shows and documentaries to be updated on the
nation's state, verify them by reading more supplemental sources, and compare them to
the historical happenings. Then, I identify the problem think of a solution that is inclusive
to the poor and healthy for the economy, such as firstly solve the root cause of the
problem rather than giving 'ayuda'. This act will not solve the problem but will cause
problems to the economic growth of the Philippines. Also, it is crucial not to be silent about
our political standpoint. I am slowly overcoming the fright of stating my political opinions
to voice out the silent cries of the people in need and are continually exploited by the
broken system.

In this time of the pandemic, social media has been there for me to socialize and
do something that drives boredom away. However, I develop my sense of self via
'Sharing' by listening to podcasts about life on Slater's SkyPodcast Channel. I find
relaxation and learning in every episode they tackle about being a teenager until he got
his family. Communicating with the help of social media confirms how I value and take
care of my friends as much as I can. I always brag about my friends through distributed
memory, such as sharing my day with them and reaching out to them by chatting with
them when they needed someone to talk to. The role I wanted to be in a video games
reflects on what I am, especially with my friends. I usually play Dota 2 with Jan Michael
and always play the support role, which means I can heal and support teammates in
clashing. I always do that 'support thing' to my friends, like listening to their burdens in life
and continuously staying with them when they badly need it. Though gaming helped me
ease the stresses I have in the real world, I need to control myself to be completely
addicted to it. Besides, trash-talking in every game is sometimes dangerous, knowing that
there are some times that the statements are below the belt, which may be tolerable to
me, but may trigger adverse effects on others.

The brain controls the processes inside our body, which includes thinking and
learning techniques. The brain, specifically the frontal lobe, facilitates higher cognitive
functions such as memory, emotions, impulse control, problem-solving, social interaction,
and motor function. Thus, the frontal lobe influence learning more than the other parts.
Learning has been very crucial in human life. The leading theory that I think is most suited
for me is the Operant Conditioning theory, derived by Skinner, which states that operant
behaviors are learned and voluntary. I usually act like the rat in the example. I do my best
in my daily activities because of the reward, which is the longer sleep hours. Besides, the
suitable learning technique for me is summarization. In order to apply it effectively, I need
to follow the three components of self-regulated learning to observe every step of learning
and assess myself on what factors I should omit to attain the optimum aspect of the
learning process. Overall, in partaking in this module, I learned that learning needs hard
work.

Planning has been very particular in my life since the start of the class due to the
tons of work. The last semester was my glory days as I am very efficient with everything
and can do precisely what I plan. However, due to emotional stresses and the lasting
effect of the pandemic, my performance declined as I suffer from being burnt out. Right
at this moment, writing this essay, I am holding this tiny bit of hope of academic stress-
free relaxation. However, my primary mindset is to do my best as I can, for hard work will
never betray us. Although my philosophy is like this, I consider it as dynamic and can
change in every lesson I learn somewhere down the road. This mindset saved me from
my darkest times, which made me what I succeed up until now. Knowing that life is not
constant and continuously racking the boat, it is better to manage my emotions first
because they are among the main contributors to my failure to attain the goal. I will never
recommend social modeling to others because there is no such thing as the same level
for me. We are at our own pace, and we must focus on it.

In the present, the main contributor to stress is academics. As discussed in this

module, there are two known kinds of stress: eustress, positive pressure, and distress,
which means negative stress. Naturally, I love academic stress because I tend to do tasks
right away to produce a quiet presentable output. However, stacks of homework and
quizzes are too many to respond; thus, leading to an inability to focus, which often results
in burnt-out. However, with those dilemmas stated above, I usually relieve stress by
meeting my friends, watching series such as K-drama, listening to a podcast, K-pop, and
19's alternative music. They were pretty helpful in mitigating the adverse effects of stress
on my mental health. They are effective because of the diversion of attention to the
stresses, which heals me from fighting again. This last discussion has been an eye-
opener for me to try more things specified in the acronym SELF-CARE to give myself time
to heal while fighting my problems in life. I watched It's Okay Not to Be Okay, and the
most memorable line is "The heart is a liar, it stays quiet even if it is hurting." From now
on, I will express my emotions more to my loved ones to lessen the burden I feel inside.

All in all, having Understanding the Self as a subject in college has been an eye-
opener for finding myself. It also acts like my temporary diary where I can relay my
burdens in my life as of the moment. Also, the content of the module is very interactive
and is never tired to read. The explanations are precise, simple, and true to life. I view
myself as a strong individual who at last saw his worth and the importance of self-love to
uplift self-esteem. Also, with this subject, I saw the true meaning of life and how to
continue my endeavors in the light of the pandemic. I became cautious of my actions and
adjusted not to get hurt by not entangling meaning to anybody. Thus, in my opinion, the
subject really served its purpose.