All about me

Looking at yourself from different angles

Think about the two statements that follow. Write descriptive words about yourself in the space that shows you in a new, interesting light.

EVERYBODY KNOWS ABOUT ME. Think of words that describe yourself in terms of what everybody knows about you. For example: lovable, kind, thoughtful, difficult, and loyal. Try to list at least 5 words.

BUT NOT EVERYBODY FEELS THE SAME WAY ABOUT ME: are there things about yourself that are contradictory? For example some people think you are clever others think you are ordinary. 

Successful – failure

Tough – kind

Good – bad

HOW DO THESE PEOPLE FEEL ABOUT YOU? Express your thoughts about how each of these people feels about you (thirty words, no more, for each)

• Parents / Carers

• Brother

• Sister

• Best friend

• Neighbours

• Teacher

• Grandparent

ME! YES I DO HAVE FEELINGS! Complete the following:

• Excitement is

• Happiness is

• Loneliness is

• To succeed is

• To fail is

• War is

• To be hungry is

• To not belong is

What is the Self?

The concept of the ‘self’ explores who we are as individuals. Our perception of who we are is impacted by the perception of others and our experiences.

Nick Vujicic 

Nick Vujicic is a man who was born with no legs and no arms. He is now an inspirational speaker that shares his life story with whoever is willing to listen. He has turned his situation into a positive and can relate and motivate others to look at the glass half-full.

WRITING PORTFOLIO TASK 2

TASK

The most memorable life changing quote

The Stories we Tell Ourselves

Here’s a story:

I was driving home from work and a car cut me off. The guy was driving really slowly, and I wound up following him for half a mile.

As it stands, it’s not a very interesting story. But suppose we add another line:

So I laid on my horn the whole time.

Or perhaps a different line:

That’s why I’m late.

Each of those two lines add a dimension to the story that wasn’t there before. Now, instead of just a story about me, we have a story about how I like to see myself, or perhaps how I like myself to be seen. Either way, I am expressing what might loosely be called a “value.” This value is not necessarily a moral value, but a way of being that I want to see myself as living, a way of being that I consider valuable for myself and seek to associate myself with. In the first case, I express something like, “I am not a person to be messed with.” In the second it is something like, “I am not a tardy person.”

Many of our stories about ourselves do this. We tell stories that make us seem adventurous, or funny, or strong. We tell stories that make our lives seem interesting. And we tell these stories not only to others, but also to ourselves. The audience for these stories, of course, affect the stories we tell. If we’re trying to impress a date, we might tell a story that makes us seem interesting or witty or caring, whereas if we’re trying to justify a dubious act to someone who is judging us (or perhaps ourselves), we might tell a story that makes us out to be without other recourse in the situation. In the latter case, what we are doing is dissociating ourselves from a value we might be associated with and thus implicitly associated ourselves with a different one.

Not all our stories about ourselves express values like these. However, many — perhaps most — of them do. This is so even where a story might seem to express a disvalue. Think, for instance, of people whose stories about themselves are often about things not working out for them. Whatever they try, they fail; the world conspires against them. These stories express values as well, values that often stem from resentment or even despair. They buttress a view of the world that justifies their being who they are and not someone more accomplished or happy or social.

This is not to say that people who tell stories like this are necessarily wrong about their history. There are certainly people whose circumstances do conspire against them. We have seen this recently in the egregious incidents of hate toward traditionally marginalized groups. But when people come to identify themselves with stories about their difficulties, then they are not merely living through difficulties but, in some cases understandably, expressing values about their lives, ways of living that they identify with.

This last point leads to a further one. Some of the values we express are not values we would necessarily want to acknowledge. If someone calls attention to the fact that I am always making myself out to be a victim, I might well deny it. “No, it’s not me, it’s the circumstances. Everything happened just as I told you.” There are ways of being that we might value but not be willing to admit, even to ourselves, that we value. This may seem paradoxical. How could we value something and yet not admit to ourselves that we value it?

However, we know — at least in the abstract — that we do deceive ourselves about certain aspects of who we are and what we are doing. Such self-deception involves, among other things, the expression of values that we are unwilling to acknowledge. When I laid on my horn while following the slow driver — which I confess to you here I did — then I expressed a value that I would really not want to be associated with, and would likely not have admitted to at the time. (Now I try to do better, but as a person raised in New York, I have difficulty. And you will certainly have noticed that even that admission expresses a value associated with being someone from New York.)

If we reflect on the stories we tell about ourselves, both to others and to ourselves, we may well find out things about who we are that complicate the view we would prefer to be identified with.