Who am I Without Using Labels- a recent paper for communications

My Comm103 class required us to write a paper on who we are without using labels. This was a tough assignment and thought it would be a good thing to share here.

The purpose of this paper is to describe who I am but without using labels. I will explore who I really am and then write about what I learned in the process of describing myself.

To start, I am oversensitive and too hard on myself; perfection is the goal and when I can't reach it (as it is impossible to reach it) I beat myself up. The drive to make myself better leads me to physical activities like riding my bike, going to the gym, and practicing yoga as well as learning how to listen, control my emotions, and improve my abilities to be empathic to others.. Having personal ambition isn’t all bad in that it leads me to be in good physical shape, to learn, and to treat people around me with love and compassion.  It has also driven me to have a relationship with God and to make the decision to serve the Church working in the pastoral ministry.  

To the point of what I learned; I learned that striving to be perfect and beating myself up for my mistakes is a big part of who I am.  This process I explored in writing this paper continually reminded me that I can’t be perfect and by exploring who I am I can conclude that it doesn’t matter because my imperfections are a big part of what makes me who I am. I also learned that I am more than just labels; describing myself through exploring my activities, faults, and strengths is a lot more complex than a plain label. For example, describing me as a Christian is simple and easy when compared to talking about being on a path to serve God and what my plans for my faith are. I also learned that I may not like myself at times, but generally I do like who I am especially when I explore myself in the manner of this paper.

Another way to talk about what I learned is to describe my feelings about the process. It was anxiety ridden.  It doesn’t just require hard thought to describe myself, it requires tension, and feelings from the gut. It was a tough process, but I enjoyed the end result. Through these feelings I learned that this paper didn’t just describe me, it explored who I am which has taken me a step further in developing my self-concept.

In conclusion, this paper helped me to learn how to explore who I am and taught me that my own concept of self is important; I believe that this process if repeated periodically will help to improve my relationships through helping me to understand myself.