Perceived Self and Presenting Self

I wrote a little something about my perceived self and presenting self in one of our class discussions. I think that your perceived self can change quiet readily. In certain situations you may have a different reflection of yourself. I think my perceive self changes depending on the age of the people I am around. When I am around younger kids, usually babysitting them or just playing with them for fun, I feel older and like I have experienced so much in life. I feel that I have wisdom and information to give them. I perceive myself as one with much knowledge. This changes though when I hang out with people from work. Most people I work with are at least 5 closer to 10 years older than me. When I talk about issues I am having, they say yea I have been there and done that, it will get better. When I talk to them I perceive myself as still being very young and having so much to learn. Both of these perceptions I feel are good ones, but different. My presenting self is much different between young children and when I am around my friends. I would never use some of the language or do some of the things I do around children that I do with my friends. When with the children I present myself as a diligent student who is a hard worker and a good friend. When I am with my friends, they know because I present myself as not being a very hard working student all of the time. There are times that I like to go to a party or maybe break a rule.

The Self-Concept Resists Change

I agree that even though we change, we have a tendency to cling to our existing self-concept. This can be because our past self-concept is better than the new one or it could be that it is just hard to accept any changes, even if they are better. I always had a negative self-concept growing up. I always felt that no matter what I did people were always smarter than me, better at sports than me, or had a better life then me. As I grew up, I found out that my life isnt so bad. There are people with major family issues, learning issues, and people who didnt have the oppurtunity to play sports. Even though I saw this, for years I still saw my self-concept as being stuck in my elementary and junior high years. I think that finally after years went by and people telling me your life doesnt suck too bad, I actually started believing it myself.

Communication is irreversible

In Chapter One, page fifteen, the book has a paragraph talking stating that communication is irreversible. I have had a few times in my life where I wished I could back up and erase the words that came out of my mouth. An example of this would be when my mom and I were in an agruement about me not taking responsibility for my things around the house. She started complaining that I was not picking up my things around the house and that it wasnt her job to do it for me. I told her that I had a lot of things going on and said it was not that big of deal. When she started saying yes it was I got mad and said some words I probably shouldnt of have said, some including I hate you. I rarley use the word hate because I feel it is very strong. There was no further explanation that could help my mom understand why I said this, because I shouldnt have said it to begin with. I like the books example of not being able to "unsqueeze" a tube of toothpaste. I wish I could have unsqueezed my tube of toothpaste (sucked the words back into my mouth), but like the book says communication is irreversible.