Woman Challenges People To Describe Themselves Using 'Non-Observable Descriptions' — 'You Do Not Know Yourself’
How well do you think you know the real you?
@simplifying.sam / TikTok When asked who you are, your mind probably jumps to descriptors like your name, age, and occupation. One woman prompted her viewers to dig a little deeper and really get to know and "fall in love with yourself.”
The woman asked viewers to describe themselves using 'non-observable descriptions.'
Samantha Chung, a self-described life, manifestation, and mindset coach, creates content focused on spirituality, mental health, achieving life goals, and other similar topics. In a recent video, she explained her theory that many people are suffering because they don’t really know themselves.
“I submit to you a challenge to introduce yourself to me or some imaginary person without using your name, age, occupation, nationality, ethnicity, or location,” Chung says in her TikTok. “If you could not say any of these things, it would force you into an actually deep and intimate conversation about who you truly are.”
Chung reminds us that when we get to know somebody well, we tend to think of them more in terms of their personality than demographic details. “What they care about, what they love, what their values are — these are what make up a person.” She asserts that characteristics like these are stable over time, unlike age, appearance, occupation, and wealth.
Chung explains that when the people we love make mistakes or go through changes, it doesn’t alter the way we feel about them because we know and love who they truly are. She then tells us to apply this mindset to ourselves. “If you make less money one year... all of a sudden your thoughts about yourself are spiraling downwards and you ‘hate yourself’ again. And all of this is because you identify with everything that has nothing to do with you,” she says.
Throughout our lives, most of us are taught to think of ourselves in terms of the 'observable descriptors' that Chung mentions.
When we’re young, we’re asked what we want to be when we grow up — the intended answer here is an occupation, not what kind of life we want to live or the person we want to be known as. In academic and professional contexts, we’re expected to introduce ourselves in exactly the type of way Chung objects to in her video. Aside from the occasional icebreaker or fun fact, who we really are as a person is often irrelevant in these kinds of environments, where performance is generally the top priority.
The fact that many of us struggle so much to define ourselves in the manner Chung describes is largely due to how our society has affected our self-concept, and Chung believes that this makes loving ourselves more difficult than it should be. Instead of seeing ourselves as complex beings, we try to sum ourselves up with external factors and feel disappointed when we don’t meet our own expectations.
Some experts have linked this kind of mindset to a phenomenon labeled "internalized capitalism," where your self-worth becomes defined by your productivity.
Psychotherapist Daniel Rich wrote about the dangers of this perspective, explaining that "Tying your value or worth as a person to your job, productivity, accomplishments, or possessions is a slippery slope. It demands you keep going faster and doing more to continue feeling good about yourself." It's easy to lose sight of who you are and what you love if you're forced to spend every day thinking about how to maximize your work output.
Comments on Chung’s post were mixed.
Some people expressed how hard her question was for them, while others were surprised to find that they knew themselves better than they thought. Either way, her video prompted thousands of people to do some introspection.
“What is unchangeable and essential about you, and the part of you — your heart — that people actually get to know when they realize they’re in love with the true you... that’s who I want you to make contact with,” Chung concludes. “Because that person is so lovable, so amazing, and you would fall in love with them."
Jessica Bracken is a writer living in Davis, California. She covers entertainment and news for YourTango.