An Overview of Being Me

Abstract

Existentialism, which is a 20th century movement, does not consider the individual as a mere thinking entity; defines it as an entity who acts, feels, and can show the responsibility of taking his own choices with his free will. The individual who has the courage to make a choice with her free will and realizes herself in line with her actions has become the subject of research by existential thinkers. Although existentialism, researching of the individual the first emerged as a philosophical movement, it later showed its effect in the fields of social sciences such as psychology. Existential understanding, which has been influential in many research areas, has tried to understand and make sense of the individual in the process of "being me".
 In this article, the person who can take the responsibility of gaining self is discussed. The study is limited within the framework of the common concepts and phenomena of the philosophical and psychology existential movement. The concepts and facts of the research were examined with the phenomenological approach method. In the study, the elements of the process of being me are which the individual's freedom, anxiety to be self, being hopeful in the face of the uncertainty of the future, being aware of having a limited life, and being involved in the process of being me by making choices. Within the scope of this study, the elements of the process of being me are evaluated by associating them with religion. The following conclusions were reached in the research: Not every individual is active in the process of being a self; some individuals involve the process of being me by making choices despite their experiences of anxiety, despair, and death; while some others do not have the courage to be me in the face of anxiety, hopelessness and death.