FINAL EXAMINATION IN UNDERSTANDING THE SELF
INTEGRATED PAPER
The self gives us a personal identity or a sense of uniqueness.
But the “self” is a like a complex puzzle that for us to be able
to understand its whole meaning, we must first be able to
completely comprehend its different areas that make it as a
whole. There are various sub-categories of the self that gives a
definition on who we are as a person. Digging deeper to them will
lead us to much better picture on what the self really is.
As a human being, we are designed to socialize or to be a part of
a community and those communities that surround us will greatly
affect our personality and sometimes, define our values. With
that being said, we can say that we have a social self. It is the
role that we play in the communities that we are involved in, and
at the same time, it’s how the community plays a role in our
life. Although we have a unique perspective as an individual, we
are still vulnerable and open to the influence of the community
that we socialize with. So, understanding the role that you play
in a society will be a good way to properly have a good grip on
who you really are.
We, humans, also have the desire and need to reproduce. This is
our way to prevent the extinction of our kind. But there is more
than just procreating that defines our sexual self. Our sexual
self gives us the freedom to choose the gender identity that we
want and do the gender roles that comes with it. The sexual self
also helps us determine the characteristics of the possible
people that we can pursue. It gives us our own “taste” in
choosing partners for relationships.
We also have a material self. This is how the things that we have
can define who we are as a person. Most of the time, the things
that we get or buy give the people around us an idea on how we
act in our daily life. Each of us has a different preference on
what things to use or bring. It may seem like a small detail, but
understanding the things that we have and why we got them in the
first place will surely help us develop a much clearer picture on
the wholeness of our self.
The most sensitive part of our self is the spiritual self. This
is what shapes our moral code. With different religions around
us, the one that we choose to believe in is what we think we best
suited for. The belief that we will have for the rest of our
lives will be greatly influenced by the beliefs that we will
adopt from the religion that we choose. The spiritual self also
helps us to understand the essence of living, it gives a sense of
conscience on whatever that we do. Understanding the reality
about our spiritual self will enable us to manifest the moral
codes that we learned into our daily lives.
As a Filipino, we have a strong desire to be involved in the
talks regarding our politics; this is a reflection that our
political self is active. We connect the values that we want to
see to the politicians that we elect in the government. It is
necessary for us to choose a good valued leader, but these days,
the politicians are elected because of a political dynasty or
through corruption. If we stick with choosing leaders with right
values, we can have truly qualified leaders on the government
that will not make a mess out of our country.
The last area of our self is the digital self; it is how we
present our self in the digital self and also how the social
media affects our way of thinking and living. We need to remember
that everything we do in the digital world has its own
consequences. So, we must be careful on whatever we put up on the
internet and we must also be aware about the things that the
internet is feeing our mind. Having a clear understanding of your
digital self will give us a right perspective on who we are, not
only in the real world, but also in the digital world.
In conclusion, we can say that the self has various regions that
we really need to understand first for us to truly identify our
self. Each of those area influences a specific part of our
personality. Without them, it would be difficult for us to
properly play our role in society. The self is the collective
values that we get from each of those areas. It is a compilation
of different influences that we gain throughout our life.
