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The importance of a self-image
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The issue of how to live up to an image is still of much relevance today. From the moment an individual enters this world, he or she is confronted with the task to become a good child, a promising student, a useful social member and a dutiful parent.
From one perspective, living up to an image can exert a great deal of positive influence in that it functions as a motivation. It instils such fine elements as honesty, uprightness and perseverance in the course of molding one's personality and therefore turns out to be an effective training for individuals to meet numerous challenges in life.
However, from another point of view, this motivation will also easily change into a burdening pressure when it involves constant proving of oneself. A former violent gang member once talked about how his rebellion against the image imposed on him destroyed the first half of his life and I suppose his case is not unique to Americans. As aspirations can turn into negative impulses when pushed too hard, a network engineer may become a hacker and a financial manager a greedy embezzler.
Therefore, I think the importance of living up to an image today does not rest on the conception that it can provide an ideal life for someone, but rather on the possibility that it might offer certain living track that matches one's particular interests and objectives. It should be one of the many options, but never a demanding order.
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