Ownership And Development Of Self-Related?

Are ownership and development of self related? This is a question that a lot of philosophers and critical thinkers have tried to answer. Personally I think ownership strongly influences the way we see ourselves. But, first of all, what do we mean by ownership? When I normally think of ownership, I think of all the material things that I owe: clothes, a cellphone, roller skates... But, as Jean-Paul Sartre, a twentieth century philosopher, pointed out we don't just owe material things; we are owners of personal skills, goals, dreams, relations and so much more. And all this is what really shapes the way we think of ourselves.

In my opinion what mostly changes the way we see ourselves is whether we reach our goals or not, that is our "intangible
ownership" (things that we reached, we managed to do, but not material objects). Let's think for instance of a person who plays sports: I have a friend back in Italy who roller skates with me; every time we do a competition and she doesn't get the place she expected or she fails a jump she starts thinking less of herself, just because of a competition! A lot of people are the same way in the labour market: they want to get better jobs, because they think that the more you get paid, the more you're worth. And when they fail, when they don't get the fancy job they applied for, they start thinking they are worth nothing, even though it's absolutely not true. I think all the goals and dreams we reach and fail to reach (like winning a competition or having a better job) shape our perspective on ourselves so much because these things really depend on us and our capacity of handling our life and the world in general.

Talking about relations, another "intangible ownership", a study has proved that people with a lot of close friends tend to have a higher self-elsteem, when compared to people with less friends; in fact self-esteem and the ability to make friends come along with each other: the more friends you make, the more confident about yourself you become.

Another aspect that influences our self perspective is, especially for teenager girls, their physical appearance. I have another friend back in Italy that is obsessed with her weight and how she looks like; whenever she feels like she ate too much she always says: "I am so fat, nobody likes me. I am such an horrible person!". In fact most teenager nowadays grade themselves based on how skinny and good looking they are: the skinnier and prettier they think they are, the higher self-esteem they develop.

Considering the society in which we live nowadays, the ownership of material things plays a big role on how we see ourselves as well.
Most of the times, in fact, people judge each other based on their possessions and not their character or actions: how many times have you heard some of your friends judging another peer for what they were wearing, their car, cellphone or house? "Look at her shoes, they're so ugly; she's so ugly, I could never hang out with her". And the sad thing is that when people think less of ourselves, whatever the reason that led to that conclusion is, we start thinking less of ourselves too. It is really incredible how much other people's opinions and our relationship with them can change our perspective on ourselves. The ownership of material things shape our self-esteem as well; in fact it always feels good to know that something is ours and not somebody else's, that we are worth having something: the more things we have, the better we feel about ourselves. How many of you can remember what it felt like getting your own car, knowing that that truck was yours and just yours, that you were the only one responsible for it because you could take good care of it, you could do it on your own? Aristotle agreed with the belief that owing objects is important for the way we see ourselves: he even believed that private ownership promoted some virtues, such as responsibility and
prudence.

It is therefore true that ownership, in all its aspects, changes our self-perspection: our vision of ourselves is so vulnerable that honestly everything that happens to us can shape it, like our hands can shape a ball of clay!