We Are Who We Are

 

                                             (image: youtube.com)

Hinay hinay lamang kay sa hilabian magdali. There is actually no competition. It is one’s outlook in life if he/she is competing with the people around. The real battle is within: a dynamic movement of the self from a starting point to the next. There is no time limit set by the society. Sometimes, the pressure seen from the outside can make the person feel inferior. Where in fact, no people must be pressured to live their lives the way they perceive it to be.

In 1990, psychologist Jennifer Campbell published a paper that introduced the idea of self-concept clarity. Basically, she suggested that having high self-esteem can be associated with having a clear sense of yourself and knowing who you are.

Anyone who is dedicated to self-improvement, personal development or the higher goal of spiritual growth needs to actively seek to understand oneself. This is because only when one understands where one lacks, can he or she focus their efforts on what to improve.

Basically, self-awareness is the capacity that a person has to introspect. It includes gaining an understanding of and insight into one’s strengths, qualities, weaknesses, defects, ideas, thoughts, beliefs, ideals, responses, reactions, attitude, emotions and motivations. Thus introspection also includes assessing how one is perceived by others and how others are impacted based on one’s behavior, responses and conduct.

There are instances when people look up to someone as a role model. That is not bad, but what is wrong is the time when the person start to copy or level up (and even try to go beyond) with the role model without understanding first his/her strengths and weaknesses. This is the time when the person instills some sort of a stressful set of activities for him/her to realize the skewed need.

To understand our personality, we need to understand the nature of our mind. The mind is made up of two parts – the conscious and sub-conscious mind. The sub-conscious mind is vast and the impressions that are buried deep inside are not easy to uncover and analyze. However, ever so often during the day one’s mind erupts and reacts to some events and situations negatively. As a result, one feels a certain amount of restlessness and emotions such as insecurity, fear or anger (spiritualresearchfoundation.org).

It is then important to experience metacognition, which means having awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes. This particular type of self-development pertains to becoming conscious of one’s own body and mental state of being including thoughts, actions, ideas, feelings and interactions with others. It is therefore the first step in overcoming negative emotions and reactions.

There is always a need for us to look deeper inside us to understand out motivations. This will allow the person to develop maturity. When we understand our own strengths and improve our weaknesses, there will be no time for us to be envious. You see, we will also arrive to the understanding that we are gifted with skills and intellect differently.

Let us cherish each other’s efforts to become better individuals. We know that by doing so, our niche in this world, even how big and small could it be, will be more meaningful.