Talking about identity, some people are experiencing difficulties when they try to identify themselves. Personally, often it gets quite hard for me as well when I have to identify myself at certain times. According to Samovar, it is explained that "identity is so pervasive in social interactions and can be such a critical factor in intercultural communication, it is necessary to have a thorough understanding of what it entails".
In addition, identities of an individual are like their personal self-image and how they conceptualize or see themselves either toward themselves or others.
As explained in the Lecturer's material, according to Samovar, there are few types of identity. Personal identity is one of the types of identity that is the first most important identity. "Personal identity arises from those characteristics that set you apart from others in your group" (Samovar, 2017). Understanding yourself will become very stressful yet it will make you a lot easier to carry yourself in society.
Generally, personal identity is an identity from those characteristics that set you apart in your group. Those characteristics of yourself could be anything, for instance, our hobbies, how we see things, interests, education, and many more. It is also explained that those things will make us unique and influence how we will see ourselves.
Surely, a culture is taking a role on how we set our personal identity, by how the culture shaped either our mind, behaviors, and many more. Reflected to myself, I see myself as a person who has my own vision and mission of life and personality.
One of the motivations that keeps me wanting to try anything even if it makes me very exhausted is, one day, I believe that those experiences or exhausted feelings of me will pay off with a good result. Indeed, not all people have the same motivation that keeps them being motivated, they might see it from a different perspective.
In my perspective, as it is explained that there is the emergence of a new identity, such our cyber identity or identity in social media, I think it is the second important identity for me. Due to the daily consumption or the utilization of social media, it becomes very necessary in shaping our identity in the virtual world.
One of the things I learned from social media is that everything can be a lie, and we could not criticize everything based on what we see in the social media. In fact, I regularly use the Instagram platform to be the place where I give a little updates about my life either academically or socially.
For instance, recently I posted a few activities that I did with my committee friends since I was accepted in one of the committees at the university level, such as ICCD (International Cross Cultural Day). Basically, I wanted to create an identity where people will see me as an active student in the university balanced with my social life (or spending time with family).
In accordance with what I did on my Instagram account, I can say that I am a girl and student in the University of Atma Jaya Yogyakarta who is actively balanced with the time I spend with my friends or family and often join a few committees.
Lastly, regional identity is considered to be in the third place of the important identity. According to Samovar, regional identity is often characterized by varying cultural traits. Usually, Bali is heard of their beliefs which are very sacred and the purity of its belief.
Often, whenever people see my Tridatu bracelet on my hand, they will directly identify my regional identity and straightly ask "you must be from Bali, aren't you?". It happened very often, especially when I moved to Yogyakarta where I met a lot of people that do not come from Bali.
Ref.
Samovar, L, A., Porter, R, E., McDaniel, E, R., & Roy C, S. (2017). Communication between cultures. 9th ed. Boston: Cengage Learning.
