Who Am I: Human Life Experiences Constructs The Foundation of Self

Does someone actually know thy self? Or is it an illusion that you know yourself clearly without having doubts about your real identity? Had someone or something provoke you that made you realize and ask questions like “am I really me?” “Do I know myself?” Well, we always come to this point in our lives. You see, when we were born, we don’t know anything about ourselves, but I cannot say that our mind is “Tabula rasa” or a blank sheet which is according to John Locke the mind is empty and solely it depends on pure experience to gain knowledge; but even when we’re infants we can do expressions like crying which is a sign of knowledge and also a stimuli to the environment provoking them to respond, though self is also having consciousness, or awareness on something, so we don’t really know ourselves. Now let’s get to the main point.

Self is the sum of all experiences, past and present. Those experiences made who you are; experience changes someone’s behavior; experiences like pains, sufferings, joy, and frustrations etc. is the building block of the self; based on Bandura’s theory of “Triadic Reciprocal Causation” human action is the result of these three (3) variables: the person, the environment, and the behavior itself; each of the variables interacts and reciprocates with the others. The Environment affects the person and the person affects the behavior, and as well as the other way around, so it is only reciprocating.

As you age the “Triadic Reciprocal Causation” expands more, which means you get to expose to a bigger environment; but let’s not focus of “Triadic Reciprocal Causation” because it focus on the present events of the human person. The main point of this essay is that most of your experiences especially the past experiences construct your wellbeing.

It is how we will act on our past experiences, if we will accept it or forget it, make use of it or just trash it out; there will be quite different consequences in every response, the future is irrelevant, so the human person’s character development solely depends on his past events and also present events; for example if someone goes through such pain, it is either they will learn from it and avoid it or face it wisely because they had already gone through that such event. On the case of the “Triadic Reciprocal Causation” wherein it happens presently, for example, a baby ask chocolate cookie from his/her father, in that case the baby is the environment and the father is the person, which the environment provokes the person to think, and change its behavior for its response on the environment; if he will say yes or no, the environment will still change depending on the person’s behavior.

As a student I can notice that these concepts were applicable to me, like when we go to school to learn by experience, also when I procrastinate so it ended up for me to cram, so I learn from that past experience to be punctual on school activities and never love deadlines.

My chosen field of profession will solely depend on how I respond to experiences I get from school and from the staffs, like If will love that field of profession or not, and also it is also the approach to me when they share their experience will affect my decision, if I go to the field of medicine, I should love the concepts in it; if I go to field of industry, etc.

As a person, that theory is very applicable, me as of now is not myself 18 years ago, I was so unconscious about my surroundings, I can only cry as an expression, but day, weeks, and even years have passed I have encountered such events and experiences that gave fuel for change. I have experience through a lot of problems, pains, joy, celebration, and it made it me who I am today. My present decisions will be affected by my past experiences, because I have learned from my mistakes, I get wiser as I correct my mistakes.