Introduction
Self –concept can be defined as a personal resource which an individual may utilize to cope up with stressors of life (Montpetit & Bergeman, 2010). Human being seems to think that they are honest while on the other hand dishonesty always pays. The empirical researches carried out, highlights that people often act dishonestly in order to profit others while honestly interfering with their own integrity. Tanti, Stukas & Halloran (2008) points out that, the subject touching on self has received attention in Social Psychology for a long period of time. This is attributed to the fact that the concept of self has been considered to be a vital aspect of any person that has essential implications concerning his health, social and mature emotional functioning. Under the concept self lies some subtopics such as self-regulation, self-esteem and self awareness.
Individual self consists of aspects found in self concept that helps in differentiating an individual from others in terms of uniqueness, character traits within the social context. Self esteem can be defined as a personal evaluation of his or her own value. It is what an individual believes he or she is capable of doing in her own capacity and sometimes may encompass emotional feelings such as shame, triumph, despair and pride. Self presentation on the other hand can be termed as a procedure that people uses to scrutinize and control how they are evaluated and seen by others for example in terms of attitude , socio-economic status, competences and trustworthiness. Self control on the other hand is the ability of an individual to take care of his feelings emotionally or characters and desires for the purposes of being rewarded later and can be seen as the management of ones future efficiently. Self efficacy is an individual belief that he cant achieve whatever he or she wants in all situations whether positive or negative and those who posses this attributes always view challenges as something to make them strong rather than evading them.
Application of concept of self in my life
I am thirty two year (32) old and a lesbian. I was unable to identify my self as a lesbian until after I had been married with two children. This was due to society pressure s and my family differences. I did not use the concept of self in my life because I was an able to apply the attributes of self esteem, self awareness ,self control, self efficacy in my own life. However I went a head to please my family and other friends by getting married and having children while in deed my desire was to become a lesbian and never wanted a man in my life. I felt intimidated to do what was right according to me and went forth doing what others though was justified according to the values of the society. I lacked self efficacy as I was not able to face the challenges that were going to come by after I had chosen being a lesbian rather I chose self representation because I was so much concerned about what people will say about me.
After years of marriage , that is when I realized what I was doing was being dishonest to my self and I decided to walkout my marriage and let my people know whom I truly was after hiding my character for so long. I never minded what people would think about me thus developing my self as an individual rather than depending on people to control me in life. I had a positive self esteem and never felt ashamed of identifying myself as a lesbian. I never minded if people will avoid me because I was ready to face the challenges a head of me. I realized that I was unique in my own way and would never have same character with some one else.
As I grew up, I experienced countless problems as my parents really hated me and never saw anything good coming out of me. They always abused me and controlled my whole life. I was not able to make decisions for my self rather they controlled me like a puppet. This really affected my self esteem as I felt not worthy in life. Even if I didn’t want to do something, I could not air out my view s as I was brought up that way with my damn parents. I never liked men in my life and really wished to be a lesbian but could not achieve these as my parents forced me to get married and only realized I could not manage that life after giving birth to two lovely kids. This could not be the case if my parents had not made me to have low self esteem in life where I never realized my value as an individual.
Conclusion
From my life experience, I only came to realize the concept of self a little bit too late. As discussed in the introduction, the knowledge of the concept of self may act as a resource for overcoming some stresses in life. I therefore had to do away with my low self esteem and replace it with high self esteem, self efficacy and self control. This three enabled me to boldly do what I though was right and never minded about the challenges or whatever lay a head of me. I knew I could handle the shame that would come along with it.
References
Chris, Tantia, Arthur ,A. Stukas, Michael & J. Halloran . (2008). Tripartite Self-concept Change: Shifts in the Individual, Relational, and Collective Self in Adolescence.Journal of Self
and Identity, 7, 360 – 379.
Mignon, A. Montpetit &C. S. Bergeman. (2010). The self-concept and conjugal loss: Evidence
for structural change, Journal of Death Studies, 34, 606–624.vv
