Do you think perception of self in this age is on track or thrown off?

Question

Do you think looking a certain way or acting in a certain matter should have a say in how you are percieved as an individual? Do you think it should dictate a person's lifestyle? (Remember, opinions on how this question is percieved is going to vary.)

Answer 1

I blame a lot of the bad stuff on the media.

We have a whole generation of people now who have been cared for by the video babysitter, and what they have learned from it is that it's not who you are and what your values are, it's how you can draw attention and how cool you look while your doing it.
If you don't look like the kids in the mountain dew commercial and you don't spend your life doing fabulously exciting things then you must be a boring and uncool person.
I think the importance that seems to be put on materialism is an underlying issue here.
But, I can also imagine that my parents probably felt the same way when I was young. I think maybe things have ratcheted up a bit though.
What I do notice is that a self confident and secure individual does seem to get a lot more respect than others who are just going with the flow.

Answer 2

My faculty was discussing something similar a while ago. The phrase we started using was "sense of entitlement".

We are in a college setting and some of us have been teaching almost 20 years. It feels that our students of the past five years seem to have this attitude that they deserve to win no matter the circumstance.

The rise of plagerism is staggering. An inherent value system seems to be missing. And how many times do we see "I'm bored" even here in Y!Answers? I say, "a bored child is a dull child."

They act like since they paid tuition that we must somehow serve them, bending over backwards to make our demands fit their lifestyle and needs.

Granted these are broad generalizations!.

We tried to guess at the cause and wondered if they were raised in a daycare while mom worked. Suggesting that their caregiver was paid. Or spent too much time on the soccer field and ballet class where the coaches are keeping them busy.

It's a poser all right. If the perception of self is one of entitlement then a level of entertainment must be added to the content of one's class.

Okay, I'm done now. Thanks for the soapbox!

Answer 3

I think our perception of self is always thrown off by our own self-deceptions. We mostly do or act in certain ways so we can be perceived in a certain way. It is not our true self. To not be guided by that, to be REAL, ourselves , our truly loving self is the constant struggle of every human being whether they are aware of it or not.