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Western and Eastern concept of the Self

In Western philosophy, people are separate and unique from each other. ... However, in Eastern philosophy, the self is often treated as an illusion but both of them are centered on virtuous. Eastern psychology has conceptualized the self in ways that provide points of correspondence and divergence from Western views. In particular, the Eastern psychological worldview of Buddhism regards examination of the self as essential for personal growth, whereas in the West the self is understood primarily as an autonomous ego whose existence is distinct from that of others, in the East, it is often argued there is no meaning of self that is independent of our relation,

My cousin recently just migrated in USA. I have seen the change and the way she's adapting the concept of the westerns. She used to be so dependent to her family, she doesn't work for herself and even stayed to her parents' house when they were still living here in Philippines. But today, I am seeing her as a very independent woman, a woman who thinks for her own, work for her self and living on her own. Whether you belong to Western or Eastern, what really matters most is the way we think and we are a good citizen. It is not about being dependent or independent, as long as you are helping your family and the people around you is enough already.

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Psychological Perspective of the Self

In this chapter it is similar to our first discussion. It is who we are and our thinking and what we feel about sex according to our age. In this chapter it opens my mind that it was not just the people around us that will affect our minds but it is also a part of our growing self. The experience of the self includes consciousness of one's physicality as well as one's inner character and emotional life. We, human are indeed always striving for self-fufillment that can lead to discouragements when not reached. In every ages and every season in our lives we face many feelings everyday, just like on our teen years we are prone from identity crisis and even our roles in the community.

Personally, I am very much worried about what is really my role in this world or even in our family. I am afraid of failures and I may take the wrong path for me to reach my true role. But in this chapter I have learned that to achieve an individual identity, we must create a vision of ourselves that is authentic and anchored to our goals.

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Digital Self

People nowadays use technology to make their work easy, they tend to rely on technology for an easier work. Even us, students use technology to do our projects for school. in our generation we are very lucky to have our printer, computer and even our cellphones. Growing up I do always listen to my parents' story about their younger years, and indeed we are very lucky because technology helped us to make the world better.

Look around, you'll see different people using different kinds of technology in their daily life. Our money, our papers, our thoughts, our work, our socialization and even our bible are already in technology. Technology can help us to live in easy and wonderful life but I think we should still appreciate things without technology, kids playing outside our houses, people who carry their bibles in the park to win soul and even us students learning because of our instructor and experience not because of Google.

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The Political Self

Political self is a responsible self who is aware to what is happening inside the country and to his/her surroundings. It helps us to describe our rights, freedom and obligation as human. The biggest influence for our political self is our family, the church and school that we are attending to and even our peers, they help mold our ideas and create our own identities but also our political self can also be developed through socialization

All of us people have different political self, personally I am seeing very numerous people who were fighting especially on social media because they have different perspectives and different ideas about our country. All of them have a good point, some of them are just adding fuel to the fire. It is very good that we, Filipinos are aware to what is happening to our country and to our surroundings but I suggest that we should use our knowledge to promote peace and unity instead of promoting war because you're just insisting your views and opinions.

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The Self as Product of Society

Our sociological perspective is based on the assumption that human behavior is influenced by good life. We discover more and develop our selves through interacting with other people. We might have many interpretation of how other people evaluate us, personally I think and take negative comments as judgments that can lead to negative-self image. I have learned that even though our opinions can help people to develop and build themselves, we should also be careful of the words that we are using because instead of helping them build their selves we might destroy them.

Our self is not present at birth, we are learning at how other people act, believe, thinks and move as a human and adapt it. When we already have discover our self, our own self we are now already self aware. But no matter how society or the world changes us, we still have our choice to remain as our self.

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The Self as Embedded Culture

Biological and culture factors have significant influence in developing the self, culture is the knowledge, beliefs, art, morals, law and other capabilities that a man possessed as a member of society. Self identity may have different meanings in different cultures,

Our family is the most significant feature to determine our identity, as well as our language and religion. Our name which is given by our parents plays a great role in our life because it symbolizes as our traditional beliefs or cultural self. Our name is the very first step for us to develop our names, I cannot imagine living in a world with people who have the same names. Naming practices still exists nowadays,and I find it beautiful, the meaning and the background of our names have a great impact on our personalities. Our identity isn't born, we create and develop it. In this subject i have learned that even you got married you are allowed and you are not obliged to use your husband's surname. I have learned that it is not easy to build our own identity, we will encounter many challenges and struggles in life and I do believe that encountering it is very worth it in the end of time.

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The Spiritual Self

It is a feeling of togetherness with a higher being and the universe, it gives a deeper purpose or meaning for one's life. Our family, the school and church that we went to help us to develop our spirit. We Christians, use "spirit" to describe holy. We describe that the experience of the sacred is characterized by God. We worship Him to know the true meaning of life and to give praise to our Creator. I believe that no religion nor people can save us but I believe that religion plays a very big part in building our relationship with Christ and knowing life.

I agree to Viktor Frankl's book, he said that those people who find some meaning were likely to survive life and those who lost their purpose were certainly doomed. If you really know God's plan and purpose for you nothing can go against you, you'll encounter many discouragements, struggles and failures but if you'll just believe Him you'll have a prosperous life but people who do not accept God and his purpose struggles a lot.

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The Material Self

I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is besr for everyone, best both for the body and mind

-Alber Einstein

Self is composed of material self, the manifestation of our identity is our material possession. Everything that we consider as ours can made us our self.

It is very hard for us people to accept and appreciate our own body, we tend to worry about our physical appearance, I am very guilty because I still compare my body to the body that I see in social media. I envy their hour-glass-like body and very flawless skin that got to ghe point that I did everything to achieve those but instead i got sick and worse. The clothes that we wear present ourselves, some are very influenced by the social media that even if they cannot afford it they will do everything to buy those branded clothes to satisfy themselves, they do this because they are anxious to confirm to what their peers find attractive. The extension of an individual's identity such as people and pet are very important for the people because they feel good when they have something that is worthy to be flexed in social media or even in his/her peers. Personally, I use my family to shape other people's way of viewing me as a person. I bought dogs to satisfy myself because I envy people who have it.

In conclusion, I have learned that we should really stop caring about somebody's life and other's way of living, because it affects us and it can lead us to be materialistic. We should appreciate what we have and accept what we do not have. We should value everything that we have, me must know that the happiness we will receive when we get what we want is very far from the happiness that we feel when we have what we need. Stop the comparison and appreciate.

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The Sexual Self

When adolescence began, the physical changes began as well. It includes the maturation of our reproductive system and the development of primary and secondary characteristics. In this chapter we have learned the different stages and phases we experience in our reproductive system. It is very helpful for us because I believe teens are more curious about all this things. I think that we, teens should learn this so that we can understand the things that are happening in our bodies. I only know the basic knowledge in reproductive sytem, i even forgot what are their purpose and how they work. I have learned the different components of love and the ingredients of romantic love. All along i thought that love was just love. I thought that falling in love is already love, i never thought that there are ingredients to romantic love. Personally i thought that lust is very sinful act, attraction only occurs when you are attracted to anyone, and attachment is only a feeling of being used to be with your partner or even other people.

Personally, I was amazed and i gained knowledge especially on the phases of sexual response. I believe that love, affection and attachment play a very important role on our lives, as we grow old we make new patterns, new patterns of relationship may change as we mature. Lgbt community are very common subject in our community i never thought that people's sexual identity is called sexual orientation, I thought that they were only labeled as gay, bisexual, transgender and lesbian.

But even though we learned a lot in this chapter I think that we, teens should really value purity and protect ourselves. We should only trust people that we know very well because in this world teens or even adults are very open to sex not knowing that they can be sick and be infected with many diseases. I think that if we got to the point that we cannot refuse the temptations in this world, i believe that we pe should open our minds to use contraceptives and have safe sex for us to be safe in any diseases and to prevent early pregnancy.

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Physical self

Understanding the physical and self requires an analysis of life span. I have learned that it was the secretion of our hormones that causes physical changes. Growing up I thought that i was just over reacting the insecurities that i was feeling. It turns out that ladies ages 13-15 are really concious and dissatisfied with their body and appearance. I think that hereditary is the very root of our physical growth and the environment only helps to improve it. I was living in this world for 18 years yet i didn't know that our facial features can define who we are. I have discovered that my impulsiveness, cheerfulness and being optimistic belongs to people who are called Sanguine. I do agreee on Jean Haner's wisdom of your face because she believes that people who are square faced and do have full thick eyebrows are confident, friendly and selfless and indeed i am and i do have those characteristics and face features.

Body image is a perception of the person, it is how individual perceive, thinks and feel about their body. According to this chapter people do always compare their physical appearance to others, and i believe that it is very true especially to the people who uses social media. Because in social media, you see different faces, bodies, lifestyle, material things and even pets. People nowadays are relying to social media as their means of standards in beauty. They tend to depend on the standards of beauty in social media that can cause insecurity and self pity.

Our culture, society and county have different standards of beauty but it will change over time due to changing of culture values, the beauty that we have now will not last forever. I think that in this study i have learned that I shouldn't be pressured to the standards of beauty in social media because i have learned that their standards will change and the beauty that we have now is not permanent. It will change and it will fade so as us, people.

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Philosophers perspective

In life, your opinions and views can be wrong to others and their opinions and views can be wrong to you, these philosophers made me realize that no matter how hard you try ang convince other people to think the way you want them to think, you really cannot do it, there will always be someone who will try to oppose your views.

But in this chapter, it helps me to know myself better and it made me realize something in life, their suggestions for us to live our life to the fullest are truly helpful for me. I do believe that their opinions and studies affect many people lives and perspectives in life. Personally I really think that they are all good and their opinions and studies are true and convincing.

In the end of this study, it made me realize that we are all human, human who does not live forever, an imperfect creature binded with the perfect soul, human who were made to influence and to be influenced, we do have our own reasons, we still doubt our existence, we are a creation made by the creator, we should do our part to discover ourselves, we, people have different behaviors and no matter how hard we try to ignore other people perspective for ourselves, it will still matter because it is a part to be our "self".