How to make a new role yours?
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What to do with your own egoism?
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Mastering new roles is a natural way of personal development, but what was so natural in childhood begins to raise questions from a certain stage of growing up. It is absolutely natural that people want to become different, and that they become different. The whole question is how much this new and different is understood by the person himself and evaluated as acceptable, as good, as his or not.
Children usually do not ask themselves such questions, they just play something new. They play adults, animals, bandits, salesmen, and through these behavioral forms they become different. For children, this is a completely natural way of development. Adults, on the other hand, play more carefully, and when they try on a new image, they begin to ask themselves: “Is this mine or not mine?”
Any answer to this question not only states, but also works as a suggestion, forms a new situation.
For example, a girl begins to behave like a queen, but out of fear, or foolishly, she says: “This is not entirely mine.” But now, if she convinces herself for a long time that this is not quite hers, then she will feel it as a mask, something alien on herself, she will not feel very comfortable inside this royal, confident image, and, perhaps, others will feel it.
However, self-hypnosis does not determine everything; reality also makes itself felt. For example, a girl said to herself: “This is not mine,” but began to act, and she began to do well. Then it is quite possible that she will say: “But I mixed it up, this is mine!” — and compose a new fairy tale for himself.
By accustoming ourselves to a new role, we form a new personality for ourselves, we become a new person. As Konstantin Vanshenkin wrote,
A coward pretended to be brave in war
Because the cowards were not given a descent.
He, pale, rolled into battle on armor,
He languidly joked at a halt.
He was spinning and shaking all over,
When we got bombed.
But fear he hid carefully and evil
And he got his way.
And so he entered the role that finally
He became a brave man, almost already natural.
It would be nice if, say, a scoundrel
Forever pretended to be noble.
Hiding meanness, day by day
He showed the same persistence.
In everything else, appreciating naturalness,
I applaud such a pretense!
In trainings, there is a constant development of new behavior and trying on new personal images, and this process does not always go smoothly. A typical situation is when, after the training, some participants behave a little awkwardly and somehow strangely. They set themselves the right tasks: for example, they learn to smile, to be “suns”. And at the same time, their muscles are not developed, there is no habit, so many get a strange sun: a tense sun, a crooked sun … And here the question is: will we go further and master it, make it familiar, make it native, or say: “No, it’s not typical for me to smile, but to frown and swear is sincere and real.”
Well, well, now he returned to his old one, but is the old one successful or not? The good old is not a real person, it is only what was once successfully worked out and today feels like a familiar one. And the usual — as if native …
Probably the right option is to know well what you want to be, what your project is as a person, and then study, study and study, so that soon your projects become your own and true.
Man is an artificial being by nature, he has two natures: biological and cultural. What is artificial for an animal is natural for a person. And our task is to master cultural nature, to make it our second nature.
Children learning different roles
The development of various roles occurs gradually, starting from the first years of a child’s life. The condition for mastering a new role is the formation of the skills and abilities necessary for it. The role is given to someone who has the necessary data for this — the necessary skills or status, or who takes this role himself, showing interest in it or insisting on this role. See →