To What Extent Is It Possible To Define Oneself?

“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

In our daily life, there are a bunch of distractions which influence our daily life. Distractions which may always affect people’s life, behaviors, and identities. If people do not know themselves well, they actually would undeveloped their language of identity. A language of identities means people need to know themselves well and when they are in a society they can make themselves united with others. Andrew Solomon, the author of the essay “Son,” talks about two kinds of identities which are vertical and horizontal. Vertical identities always pass down from the parents, but horizontal identities may acquire from peer group like being gay or deaf. Individuals who with horizontal identities which are much easier to know their language of identities.

In 7th grade I was unfocused, unprepared, and childish. I didn’t know my grades would have an impact on my high school career. I thought everything that happened in middle school stayed in middle school so I focused on useless drama. I used to blame my C’s on bad teaching but now I realize I have no one else to blame but myself. I was the one coming to school unprepared to work not my teachers. Now I know all of my grades count. I have blossomed into a person I am proud of. This year I’ve made it my mission to actually pass not just get by. I now sit promptly in the front of the class and take notes. I focus on test scores and grades not drama that’s not even going to matter next week. I now know what’s important and what I should just leave

their sense of identity. Identity holds to be one of the most sought-after enigmas each being holds within themselves. It is the idea, hope, or dream that carries one to endless opportunities and limitless possibilities for oneself. Consequently, with the sense of identity, also comes the sense of being bound. What one often feels to be their own, the outside world perceives differently, potentially limiting and binding one to something foreign and false. In the following literary works, each piece voices its claim to identity and its struggle to rise above the bounds society has set on them.

Identity may be a bit hard to define because of its content its broadness, every country have their own way of building, cooking, praying, playing, joking, fishing, farming, dressing, even speaking.

The public self is often times not the true self. This indication of a difference between the public and true self leads to the idea that the self and identity of an individual are different concepts. The self, is a person’s essential being that makes each individual unique compared to others; whereas the identity, is a person’s character that is essentially created to help the individual fit into society. These two concepts begin to form early in life through influences from society, family, and culture. However, as the individual beings to assimilate the world around them, their sense of identity transforms in order to adapt to the new environment, while their sense of self remains the same.

society and what is expected of us in line with our gender, class and culture?

“We are not born knowing who we are or what our place is in the social landscape; we learn to be American or Japanese, male or female, husband or wife, or Amy, Richard, Micheal, Rachel, or Rebecca.” Our identities are constructed by this “social landscape”. The social construction of identity takes place by living life through first hand experiences and through certain social circumstances. Amartya Sen says,” Classification is certainely cheap, but identity is not. More interestingly, whether a particular classification can plausibly generate a sense of identity or not must depend on the social circumstances.” Identity is a complex matter but can be defined in simple terms. It is who you are. Your personality, the way you act in response to

The acquiring of this knowledge is what leads to us gaining our identity. Social action theorists suggest that there are three main parts to our identity. The first of these parts is the things that make us individual, such as name, signature and photograph. The second aspect is social identity, which is made up of the personality characteristics that are associated with our role in society. For example, I am seen as an older brother, which society may make me out to be annoying and protective of my younger sibling, but I am also seen as a student, who is perceived to be hard-working and well-behaved. The final part of our identity is the concept of ‘self’, or what we think of ourselves, and how we think we play our respective roles.

Throughout middle school and the beginning of high school I faced many challenges with my grades. These challenges made me grow and help shape who I am today. In my early teenage years I would view my school work not important. My perspective on priorities were all wrong. As I became older and matured I realized that. I realized school is the most important thing because my future depends on how I do. I realized if I want to go to a good college and have a successful career I have to work hard in school to get there. As high school went by my grades got better and I saw a better version of myself. My grades went from C’s and D’s to A’s and B’s in all my classes. I began to be attentive in class, and be productive and take notes. I did my school

I wanted to apply to the school all my friends were going to, but yet again my parents didn’t let me. I applied to DESA and I quickly got in! My experience there wasn’t the best but it also wasn’t the worst. My sixth grade year was an okay year. In sixth grade I taught everyone who was in my graduating class. I made great connection with each and every one of them. I also made great connection with my entire teacher as well. I like to think that I was all of my teacher favorite students. No matter how much my old school prepared me I wasn’t ready. I stilled made really good grade and kept my GPA up, but for those grades I struggled a lot. My 7th grade year was the worst. A lot of negatively things were going on in my life and I was the same person. Once 8th grade rolled around slowly but surely I started to act like myself again. After these three years, I’m happy that I went to that school. I learned so much not education wise but also life wise. Without the stuff that I went through I wouldn’t be as strong as I am now. I’m very grateful for that

We define who we are by our hobbies, our interests, by our likes and dislikes, by who we talk to and who we do not talk to, by the labels we give ourselves but not by the labels we are given by others. Identity is complex; we as human beings are defined by many things, certain things do and do not define who we are. For

At twelve-years-old, starting Junior High was struggle for me. It wasn’t because anyone was bullying me or because my friends left me and I was surrounded with drama, it was actually personal inflictions. Junior High was stressful, the natural fear of not being accepted at me, a few months before my dear friend Ruby moved from Clovis to San Francisco. It was all just a lot, and in sixth grade I felt a little… betrayed by my long time guy friend. It hurt to know we’d never be friends again, no matter how hard I wanted to start over. That, and just being a normal teenage girl, I was often feeling misunderstood and under deep pressure from my family. It was a very depressing few years and there were even times when I became jealous and hateful and I

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

Our identity can sometimes be shaped by the way others see us. As we have seen, the way in which others view us can have some sort of impact on how we see ourselves. There are also other contributing factors such as our years of adolescence, the basic human need of wanting to belong and maturing; all play an equally important part in the forming of our character and who we are. On balance it appears that there is not only one influence in the shaping of our identity, but there are many.