Advance Essay #3 Reality

My goal in this paper Is to focus on how you see yourselves vs how other people see you. they view literacy. I focused more on a personal experience to better express what I know and inform everyone real life issues people are going through. I am proud that I get to talk about an experience that I have struggled with personally. This paper is something that is very common nowadays and I wanted to get the point across that we live in a place where you get judge no matter what you look like or how you are their is always someone there to bring you down but you just have to ignore the others on what they say because you know who you are and that's all that matters.

“She is really shy,” are words the stick on me like glue. I hear it often, almost everywhere, especially inside my house or school. These words attack me like a monster who taunts the mind of a little kid watching a scary movie. How can people start rumors like this when they don’t even know the truth about me? In middle school, I was judged for being that kid who always raised their hand. They would try to discourage me by saying things like: “Stop being a teacher’s pet,” or “Stop being a nerd!” I tell people all the time to don’t judge a book by it’s cover, but they  do it anyway. No matter what I said they always continued with their abusive words they seem to mentally affect me.

“We must not allow other people’s limited perceptions to define us,” said Virginia Satir who was an american writer who was known for her approach to family therapy . Yet I have seemed to allowed other people’s limited perceptions to define me. I stopped being the “nerd” and “teacher’s pet” and became popular because I changed my appearance. Once I did people wanted to know  who I really was as a person. It’s funny how words from another person can have such a huge impact on you and make you change the way they viewed yourself as a person. Often people do not allow you to express yourself without  judgement before you can even introduce yourself.

Today many people, maybe even most, talk to other people saying one thing about about you that is not true without you being able to tell them about yourself. “It’s taken my entire life to negotiate how to identify, and I’ve done a lot of research and a lot of studying,”  says Rachel Anne Dolezal during an interview. “I could have a long conversation, an academic conversation about that. I don’t know. I just feel like I didn’t mislead anybody; I didn’t deceive anybody. If people feel misled or deceived, then sorry that they feel that way, but I believe that’s more due to their definition and construct of race in their own minds than it is to my integrity or honesty, because I wouldn’t say I’m African American, but I would say I’m black, and there’s a difference in those terms.” She changed her appearance because that is how she defines herself. I look up to her in this way, she was judged by that but she did not let it get the best of her unlike how I let people’s judgement get the best of me.

“Research shows that we normally try to work out how we are viewed by others by thinking about how we view ourselves, then extrapolating from that. The problem with this approach is that to varying degrees we all suffer from an ‘egocentric bias: we think we’re at the center of the world and everything is about us. We shouldn’t be blamed for this — it’s a natural consequence of the fact that we’re locked inside our own head.” said Jeremy Dean from a blog on psychcentral.com. I tried to work out how I was view by changing my appearance to attract more attention, just so people could see the real me and what I was on the inside before I had glasses and I would always raise my hand so I changed that. I stopped wearing glasses even tho I could barely see, I started wearing makeup and stopped raising my hand. That’s when people began to notice me. More popular people began talking to me and suddenly I was one of them.

One day I went to my Aunt Carol’s house because she was having a block party for my cousin’s graduation party. I never met this her until that day because my immediate family didn’t know she existed until she contacted my dad. She told him that  since my grandpa had another kid after he and my grand-mom split up they never told my dad about it because they didn’t want him getting hurt because he was young and did not understand about them being apart. We got to her street and I noticed a lot of my friends from around my neighborhood were there, so I knew it was going to be a fun party. We went in her house, where she was cooking in the kitchen. When I walked in her living room, she rushed over to me before I could even say “Hello.” I didn’t really say much to her because I didn’t know what to say to her. As my dad introduced us, he said, “She is really shy.” I passively disagreed, because I’m really not a shy person. I just can’t start conversations with people I don’t really know, but this is not the only time people tell others I am shy.

A lot of people think I’m “shy” person, or a goody two shoes, because I like to get my work done in class and not talk during the process. However, that was before and this is now the way I define myself, which is totally different to how others define me. In middle school, I used to agree with the kids that didn’t have any idea who they were. I defined myself as a somewhat independent person, who just likes to get my work done on time. At school now, I’m known as a social person, but don’t often participate in class. I have this fear of getting judged of saying something stupid or wrong, so, instead, I just keep quiet. We live in a place where you get judge no matter what you look like or how you are their is always someone there to bring you down but you just have to ignore the others on what they say because you know who you are and that's all that matters.