what influences have made me the person i am today

What influences have made me the person I am?

It was a Tuesday afternoon and I was just getting to my psychology class and as usual I was chit chatting with my neighbors in class, Cpl Christie and Fausnight about the things that each of us did this weekend. Just when I had finished talking to Kara (Fausnight) about her weekend our psychology teacher Dr. Douglas walks in. As she is walking in I in my peppy self- personality ask how her weekend went. Dr. Douglas then proceeded to tell me that it was “none of my business”…….maybe she was having a bad day or was really stressed out or maybe in fact it was “none of my business”. She also told me that there was a certain thing called boundaries and that I needed to find out what that was. I felt dumbfounded to say the least. I’ve always been a real social person. Pretty much striking a conversation with anyone. So I was brain storming the other day and I was wondering about what to write my paper about. Just then the previous scenario came to mind and I figured I could intertwine me and how the influences that I’ve had throughout my life have influenced me and made me the outgoing, friendly, social person that I am. I’ll attempt to do this by using Erickson’s stages of development (Myers, 2005). O.k. we will start by looking at the infancy stage. Where an infant learns either to Trust or Mistrust people. I don’t know how much is true but in talking to my parents they told me that ever since the day I was born I was such a crybaby. They also told me that I never wanted to be alone or have anyone even go as much as 5 feet from me because I would start crying and throwing a fit. The thing though is that most infants develop a sense of “stranger anxiety”, which is the fear of strangers (myers, 2005). Me on the other hand, I would only cry when I was left alone, I was never really too afraid of strangers. One reason could be that ever since I was born I came into an environment rich with people. My dad was an associate pastor at the church that even now we still attend. So for this reason and the fact that on my dad’s side there are 14 brothers and sisters and on my mom side there 9 brothers and sisters I was always going from one person to another being passed around. As Erick Erickson explains I formed a sense of “basic trust” with not only my parents but with my extended family members and members of the church be...

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... learned from my dad and his tenure as associate pastor and growing up in a church of over 500 people. Anywhere he would go he would always strike-up a conversation with or know a person, or someone would come up to him that knew him. One lesson that he taught me and I saw through my life was that life is all about the relationships that you make with people. He told me that he likes to talk to people because not only does he get to get inside their heads and see things from their point of view. But it also helped him forget about his problems and his worries for a while and focus on the other person and if he could help them even by just giving them some advice….he would. After all he was an associate pastor so listening and understanding people was not only something he liked to do…it was his duty ( he never liked to call it a job). So really it has been my dads influence and teachings as well as the teachings from my church and its members. Not to mention that I come from a huge family, and our culture (Mexican people tend to be more close-up and personal than most people) that have shaped and influenced me to be the open talkative and very much people person that I am today.