-knowing the real me-

When I was still a child, I already learned to mingle with others. My parents exposed me to a bigger world, the real one. I always play with kids of my age before and even now, I still do the same. There I gained confidence. I learned not to be inferior. I guess that's my parents' goal: for me to be confident and to be able to face people in any situation.
Belonging to a society is indeed an important thing an individual must undergo, and I am aware of it. Through this, I can develop important things I am supposed to develop. I am able to have my own identity. And so my family, friends, colleagues, and everyone that surrounds me would appreciate and recognize me as me, Vincent.
I am ambitious, I admit. That's me and the rest of my traits follow (funny, religious, smart, etc.). The categories of self-attitude discussed by Littlejohn include the consensual (objective) and subconsensual (subjective). The “poor in math” thingie (my description for myself) basically is under the consensual and the other adjectives belong to the subconsensual. These traits (both consensual and subconsensual) as mentioned, were all developed because of the society I am in. I become ambitious honestly because the society says I must (well, that's for me huh!).
My friends say that I am funny. Probably because I crack jokes anytime and anywhere, corny or not. That's what I leave to everyone so they would easily identify me (that if somebody asks if they know Vincent, they would automatically say: “ah si Vincent, 'tong clown!” haha!). They value or remember more my comical prowess (char!) over my being smart (poor thing) and being religious (partly true). These maybe they see through my self-conception. Little john defined self-conception as the plans of action towards the self as an object. It involves identities, interests, goals, ideologies, and self-evaluation. Because this self-conception anchors attitudes, they can easily judge me using this as their reference.
And like any other living organism in this world, I am also judged in a worst manner by some people. To be called “payatot” in front of many people, I think is an insult, a slap unto my face. Well I admit it shows. It hurt me mainly because to accept the truth is hard. “The truth hurts”, they say. But sometimes I tend to see the angle of insecurity as another reason of insulting me.
“...Because attitudes are verbal statements, they can be measured and observed” (Littlejohn). I am ready that everything I did and I am about to do will be judged by the people surrounding me.
This leads me to saying that the topic symbolic interactionism is indeed interesting. Sometimes, the symbols we use to encode to other people are decoded differently. Meanings definitely are just on people. So whatever people say, it will be very fine with me as long as I know I';m doing the right things.