Self is who you we are on the outside reflecting what we are on the inside.

It is how we
behave on something disregarding on the environment we are in from our own perspectives.
Perspective is defined as the attitude towards or way of regarding something , hence a point of
view. It is sometimes acting from our unconscious mind, the ID which affects our moral compass
which is our superego that triggers our rational thinking that defines one’s self.

For example, you saw a hundred peso lying on the table . You have your urges to get it
since nobody is around . You are thinking that you can buy a lot of stuffs using that money . But
your morals counteracts your way of thinking about seeing that money on the table .Hence, your
rational thinking will take place resulting of doing what is right which avoids social shame like
getting caught on stealing something that is not yours .Which means self is what you are as a
person.

But self or personality is not constant which means it can be changed. Reasons affecting the
changes in one’s self can depend on the person’s age or level of maturity, environment, past life, or
even social media and culture.

Here are my explanations on the reasons that affects the changes in one’s self.

Age. On my own understanding on the Lockean Memory Theory which says that one’s mind
is a blank sheet after birth, one’s self or personality changes as we age. Our characters are built
depending on how our parent taught us a kid, starting on what is right and what is wrong. Our self
that is now building it’s own understanding on the concept of what is right and what is wrong
develops it own argument and behavior towards things such as following your mom’s rules because
you don’t want her to get mad or acting the way you want and crying when she is already mad to
make things at ease. As a child, your ID or your unconscious mind is more dominant than your super
ego which is your conscious mind.

Environment. Upon reading George H. Mead’s theory of the Social Self that is based on the
perspective that the self emerges from social interactions, I came up with the idea that one’s self
can be affected or changed as we age and as we get involved on different social environments not
just at home but at school as well but still depends on how adopt using our level of maturity.
According to Mead, the self is not there from birth, but is developed over time from social
experiences and activities. School is the biggest environmental factor that affects your building of
your own self where you learn a lot of things, both good and bad which also helps you rationalize
for your behavior. For example, your family never used bad words at your house. But when you are
exposed to an environment which uses foul words, your unconscious mind let’s you do or say the
things that you used to see or hear on daily basis. Your conscientiousness on the other hand let’s
you have self control on whether you allow your self adapt on the environment or not. Though
having self control at a young level of maturity is hard which makes the young people act the way
their social environment acts. Hence, if we are exposed to social environment, good and bad ; we
are likely to do things that the people on our environment does.
 Past life or past experiences. People usually act different than others. But did we tend to
understand why? Is it because that was their natural self? Or maybe because something happened
them in the past that made them act differently. To know one’s self is hard and we need to spend
time on analyzing in order to understand or to make sense of what they are doing and why are they
doing things. Past life or past experiences includes emotional trauma that causes sudden changes
on one’s character, mostly on social aspects. There are cases of people getting abused by their
parents or relative at a very young age and turns into a bully as they grew older because of
exposure on violence. Being downed and wanting to feel high outside their home, they ends up
beating someone weaker than them. Psychologically, this makes them feel better not minding
others getting hurt because of them. Hence, past experiences has a huge impact on developing
one’s self.