The self, as we know it, is our ego, what defines us, what makes us, us. This is something that might come off as vague, but think about it for a minute. Consider what you are, the qualities that define you. Have you ever considered certain qualities as being more significant than others, or perhaps, particular qualities you like or dislike? Even on the subconscious level, there is always a level of exaggeration of the self. This is showcasing parts of ourselves that we want others to see at an amplified degree. Just the same, we can suppress parts of ourselves instead of exaggerate. The extent of the exaggeration or hiding away varies from person to person, but as for myself, I can note of some qualities that I exaggerate more than others, circumstances where I’ve deliberately exaggerated parts of myself, and other times where I have downplayed parts of myself. Finding the ways we exaggerate and suppress parts of ourselves, why we do it, how we do it, and where we do it most, are on the list of qualities to search from within the exaggeration of self. Analyzing the why, how, and where can give some insight to the applicability of the overdramatization of self, however, there are clear lines that need to be drawn later on in order to differ between exaggeration and manipulation.
To clearly denote what exaggeration of the self is, a direct example applicable to most is ideal. Imagine being in a job interview. What do you want from that interview? You probably want the job. How would you go about receiving the job, or at least, increasing the likeliness of receiving it? Well, the best thing you could do is make yourself look as good as possible; being perceived as the idealistic employee. This, as you may or may not know it already, means you will likely deviate from the truth to some degree. This is normalized in society, and quite honestly, is expected. Being blunt and honest with your interviewer would be ideal, but we live in an awfully faux world, so you have to play along with the fakeness in order to get by, because if everyone else is doing it, you’re probably stuck doing it too. Parts of yourself that you believe to be good, you probably want to fluff up, and even if it isn’t totally dishonest, it isn’t exactly truthful either. This is a form of exaggeration, and you are exaggerating the self. This is a social situation, and in just about every such situation, there is going to be some amount of exaggeration of the self.
In social situations, at least for most people, they want to be liked. If I’m meeting new people, I want to present my best possible self to them. Why might I want to do this? Well, they are then made aware of the version of me that is “the best” in a sense. Now, that doesn’t always reflect reality, because as we return back to the mean, I am no longer that person all of the time. I have highs, but just the same, I have lows, and then if we average all of those out, we get an average, which is pretty neutral. To the people I’m meeting for the first time, they have no idea what this looks like, all they know about me is what I’m presenting to them then and there, and with time, if we connected further, they could then learn of my nuances, but in order to create the highest chance for social success, I would, in my mind, present the person I want those people to see.
As we’ve seen, exaggeration varies not only from each individual, but also the circumstance the individual is in. It is the amplification or overdramatization of particular qualities that make us the individuals we are. I’ve definitely tried to make parts of myself look better than they actually were while in an interview. If my competition does the same, I’m pretty much stuck in the same situation. However, there is a limit to this exaggeration. The point in which it goes too far, the line being crossed, is what we would consider a lie. Lying is a complete fabrication of something, whatever that something is, and does not reflect reality accurately. We would use the label “lie” in cases which exaggeration has gone too far, and this crossing of the line is the point at whatever is coming out of the person’s mouth no longer has any connection to reality. There are different types of lying, and lies sometimes aren’t so clear, but most acknowledge them as untruths, or perhaps, the incorrect with intention.
There is a clear distinction between exaggeration and manipulation or deception. If I were attempting to manipulate in order to deceive, I would then not present the “me” in any capacity, or if I did, it would be incredibly minimal, and there probably would be some kind of sinister goal as a result of doing so. However, this is about the exaggeration of self, so in a social type of circumstance, where I want to make connections, or have people perceive me in a certain way, I would attempt to show them the qualities I would consider “good” and then suppress the qualities I consider “bad.” I could slightly step out of my comfort zone as well, like being a lot more outgoing than I normally am, just so I could be perceived as more socially comfortable than my introverted reality. I might not be outgoing most of the time, but I have the capability to exaggerate that, even for a short period of time, for some sort of purpose. We exaggerate parts of ourselves for some sort of purpose we either have created or feel like we must follow, however, the question stands, why is that?
To answer the question, “Why do we exaggerate parts of ourselves?” we have to acknowledge the ways in which we do this without even consciously thinking about it. As described already, when in a job interview, you want to showcase qualities of yourself that you believe to be good, but you will exaggerate those aspects in order to make the interviewer believe they are better than what they actually are. You might be aware that this is stretching the truth, but because it is closer to the truth than not, you have comfort in it. Perhaps in a social situation when meeting new people, you’ll suppress qualities you believe to be undesirable and amplify the one’s you know to have a positive impact on people in order to have the highest possible chance of a good interaction. We don’t actually think about these things all that much, because it’s something that’s naturally done. There’s a reason why when we get closer to people, they then are able to see things within us that are deeper, and then they also can see how some parts of us are different based on the environment we place ourselves in. Socialization is part of our core nature, and because we’ve been at it for so long, how we socialize can then be linked to survival in the past.
To some degree, this is linked to survival. Being social animals, we’ve always been placed in situations where we have to communicate with other humans. There is a plethora of situations a human could be placed in which they have to communicate; ranging from giving orders to idle chitchat, they all participate in how you are viewed. If you were a human with other humans discussing who must leave their safety and fight, or put themselves at risk of death in some way, wouldn’t you try your hardest to keep yourself in a state of safety? Yes, you would, but how might you do this? Well, you could manipulate, but most people want to be truthful, and find value in telling the truth, and in doing so, they want to showcase the good things about themselves, perhaps the reasons they shouldn’t be putting their lives at risk, and then ignoring or not acknowledging the bad parts. It might be twisting reality, but it is more justifiable than simply lying to most people. There are more situations than this one where you want to make someone or a group of people believe you are much more than you actually are.
If you need people to believe in something, how are you going to get them there? For one, you have to make them aware of what they should believe in, why they should, and for what benefit. Yes, this steps into territory that is undeniably manipulative, but it doesn’t inherently need to be. You might be a nervous wreck behind closed doors, but if when they’re open, you can make yourself someone confident and charismatic, are you not both qualities? Does it not simply become situational control of your emotions in order to give yourself a higher likeliness to obtain whatever it is you want? If you want people to believe climate change is a relevant issue, are you going to get them to care simply by stating facts and statistics? No, no one would care. One would have to speak of the consequences and work on the emotions relevant to that topic to bring someone to care, and perhaps the person doing so doesn’t naturally do that; they might just want to state facts, but they have to exaggerate the parts of themselves that usually go untouched in order to do so.
In many of these cases, exaggeration of the self is coming from an interest to showcase certain aspects of yourself to their utmost degree, if not stretching the truth a little, for some kind of purpose. Another reason why one might exaggerate something within themselves would be in order to bring something deep within to the surface. If you find yourself to be introverted but you want to be more extroverted, how might you go about doing so? Well, that reality is, you copy what people you deem as extroverted do. You replicate those qualities, but you might not even be aware of the fact that’s what you’re doing. You think about what parts of you are introverted, what parts are extroverted, and then put a huge amount of energy into making those extroverted qualities external for everyone to see, and then continually doing that. At first, it will undeniably be tiring, but if done again and again, it becomes significantly less tiring, and what once was something you had to exaggerate is now the baseline, and this type of action can apply to just about any part of ourselves, with a few exceptions.
One notable exception is that we cannot exactly exaggerate our intelligence. We can make ourselves become more outgoing, or angry, or kind, but we can’t change our capacity for information nor our ability to find relevancy in that information, in the sense that, you can’t change where your intelligence is capped out at. However, it isn’t always about changing the thing itself, it is about being perceived in a particular way, which can actually backfire. Trying to be seen as intelligent while being unable to change your intelligence can lead to less than desirable situations. If you use large words that most people don’t know, you might believe that you’re going to be perceived as more intelligent, and to some, you will be. Yet, to many others, it might become obvious to them that you’re intentionally trying to be perceived in a certain way, and because you’re acting in such a way, you are then seen as disingenuous, and you’re probably now viewed in the opposite way you’d like; unintelligent. This is a case in which there is intention behind the individual’s actions, but this isn’t always the case, and in many cases, the person doesn’t understand how they started acting in such a way. This then brings us to the how aspect of the exaggeration of the self.
How is this process even happening? Well, there is the possibility of intention, like in some of the examples given. You might be deliberately trying to exaggerate something, but many of the situations where you overdramatize a part of yourself, it is a subconscious action; you did it because that’s what always has been done, and what you learned to be the normal thing to do. The latter, autonomic exaggeration, is pretty easy to understand because it’s a general way to look about many things relating to the self. Simply put, you internalize how people act from a very young age, and you probably will take a lot of qualities from your parents because of this. As you age, you will continually take in more qualities from the people around you, but some of these things will solidify. When reaching adulthood, you have the capability to change, but it becomes increasingly difficult to do so. What this means is that, as a result of everyone else playing the social game this way, exaggeration of the self, you then copy after them, even if it isn’t something you are consciously aware of doing.
When you want to exaggerate something with your own intention, things differ completely. It isn’t automatic, because you are making the conscious effort to exaggerate something, and it always comes down to what you think should or should not be amplified for other individuals to see. If running on automatic, you exaggerate whatever your subconscious thinks is best, and that’s what is whatever has been learned throughout your entire life. In this circumstance, you want particular qualities, one’s you have learned to be good or desirable, to be the focus. You want people to see these things, and getting there is simply finding the thing and then amplifying it. Suppose you want someone to think you’re really interested in the job that you’re being interviewed for, while you actually don’t care about it at all and you just need a position to work at, how will you handle yourself? Well, you’ll act like you really do want it, and you’ll do all you can to exaggerate the aspects of yourself to promote the belief that you genuinely want the position more than other individuals. You might want the position, yes, but it doesn’t reflect reality in its most exact form.
How you decide what is going to be exaggerated, even if it a conscious decision, is being filtered through all the experiences you’ve had and all the things you’ve learned. Much of those things have not been of your choice, so to some extent, like all things, you don’t have the complete ability to choose something that is “yours,” but that doesn’t exactly matter. What matters is your ability to deduce what qualities you want others to see more than others, choosing the correct quality, and then exaggerating that to a reasonable amount. If you try to exaggerate yourself to be an outgoing person, but you go too far, you can actually cause discomfort for others. The way you learn how much is reasonable is by assessing what you’ve seen in others, and then replicating that in yourself. These things are from your own perception and forms of deduction, but we are taught in many ways how to act, and there usually wasn’t any particular rational reason why we should follow the rules presented to us, aside from the negative effects. If a teacher taught you not to act in a certain way, and you had the ability to control it, even if a little bit, there is a good chance you did. Just the same, it might’ve made you act in the opposite way, exaggerating that quality that you were told to suppress. These types of interactions as children and teenagers then form who we are at later ages. The “how” in the exaggeration of the self is rooted in our experiences when we were younger, and these are relevant whether we are acting subconsciously or with intention of our exaggerations. Yet, where might these exaggerations be happening?
It’s pretty obvious by now with the examples used that we exaggerate ourselves in social situations. Our interest is surrounded around making certain parts or qualities of ourselves more known than others. The majority of the time, this overdramatization of qualities we deem as “good” can be applied in almost all types of social interactions. There are many types which are all equally valid, whether you might be in a group of people, having a one-on-one conversation, in a job interview, or speaking with a grocery store clerk. In each of these situations, it’s more likely than not we aren’t acting in exactly the same way. When communicating with a clerk at a grocery store, you don’t need to make them feel like you’re the best fit for being told what aisle the cookies are in. You want to be concise and direct, and hopefully, kind and thankful. In a job interview, you might want to be kind and thankful just the same, but you likely aren’t going to ask what wage you could potentially receive in direct language.
Words and language are some of the tools we use to exaggerate ourselves, but these don’t always mean a direct interaction with someone. You might be writing a letter to someone, or writing a journal entry to yourself, or maybe writing an essay. In each of these cases, how you write changes, and what you want to promote or focus on also changes. An essay, or to be more specific, an academic essay, will have a focus on facts, and will avoid certain types of language or words in order to promote the belief that the information is in a state of being, it simply is, rather than having potential to be something else. Yet, you wouldn’t write that way in a journal entry. You’ll probably write in the first person, and you probably would do the same for writing a letter to someone, but in your journal entry, you might not care so much for keeping things grammatically correct or fixing spelling errors. With a letter, you probably, or hopefully, would care about those things, to increase the chances of understanding within the other individual. Whether writing an essay, letter, or journal entry, for most people, there is no intent to manipulate or make someone believe something is not true; there can be a need to amplify certain pieces of information, but it isn’t intended to be perceived as something else entirely. Yes, there are those who will attempt to manipulate using these methods, and it takes a keen eye and experience to know when someone is doing this intentionally. Knowing when there is an interest to manipulate rather than simply exaggerate is an important difference to make note of.
Manipulation has a negative connotation, and rightfully so. It usually has to do with causing harm to others, because there is a want to make someone believe something, and the means to getting there is usually lacking in truthfulness. It’s pretty easy to see how this can now be overlapped with the exaggeration of self. If one exaggerates to the extent of coming off as something that they actually are not, then they are manipulating, whether they’re aware of it or not. If you wanted to be liked, you’ll act in a way, or at least it is likely, that presents you as someone you would consider likable. Sure, that might mean you do things that most people don’t like, but it’s whatever you consider in your own mind to fit that category. Someone who wants to manipulate you will bring forth a quality, or set of qualities, that are not reflective of who they are, but they have analyzed from the outside as being desirable, and so they use them to make you believe that they are someone they are not. For what reasons? Well, it varies from person to person, but what one needs to keep in mind is when this is actually happening.
In high school, I would suppress certain qualities and exaggerate others. This was mostly done in order to get by; I didn’t want to be completely alone, and that meant pretending to be someone I was not. This is manipulation, is it not? I manipulated others into believing I was a different person so that I could be friends with them, or what an outsider would consider friends, so that I might have people to surround me instead of being in a completely isolated state. This didn’t cause harm to any of those individuals, we never became close, and once high school was over, I never had to see their faces again, but manipulation is generally associated with harm. Not only did I manipulate the people around me into thinking I was someone else, I also manipulated myself into thinking I could play the character of that person; I had to act.
This was a negative experience. I didn’t enjoy exaggerating qualities that I didn’t like. Yes, they were within me, but they were much smaller and insignificant, so much so that no one could take notice of them. However, I had to dig them out, present them, and stay within that realm in order to fit in with a group of people I did not like. It was energy consuming, tiring, and made me feel awful. As a result of doing this, I know that I have many of those qualities much more at the surface than if I had never had to play them out, such as much of my prickish attitude. While I was intentionally acting in this way, there are individuals who don’t feel bad as a result of doing this, but instead, feel nothing from it, and find that it is easy to do, because being anyone else in order to obtain something is just another task to them; they don’t want social connections in the same way most do. This is the only thing to be wary of, and it can be hard to spot, but that’s where the line must be drawn.
Suppression of the self is much like the exaggeration of the self if it were flipped on its head. Instead of amplifying a quality, you downplay it, or squish it down, so much so it no longer becomes noticeable. The reasons for doing this are much like why you would want to exaggerate a quality. If you exaggerate a quality, you want someone to see it, if you downplay a quality, you want it to be hidden. Both exaggeration and suppression are energy consuming, but it can be a lot more deceiving when you suppress, as in the midst of it, you might end up suppressing a lot more than you realize, and it takes until the point you can do it no longer that you realize what you’ve been suppressing for so long.
Situations for suppression could be applied to already stated examples, once again, like a job interview. Suppose you’re someone who is quick to anger, and the interviewer asks something you don’t like; you might normally shout or say something inappropriate. However, if you suppress that, you then can keep yourself under control, which is desirable if you want to get the job in the first place. Something like the suppression of anger can be applied to any other social situation too. If you want to be viewed as angry, sure, it isn’t an issue, but to many, anger is not something they wish to be around. For myself, when I see anger, I instantly want to distance myself from it, along with other qualities, such as shouting or yelling.
I find myself suppressing a plethora of emotions, and this means I could arguably say that I suppress my feelings as a whole. This encompasses many different things, and it generally holds true. The reason for this is not limited to one, but in the context of the suppression of self, and social connections, it then allows me to come off as rational, cool, and collected. If I weren’t suppressing my feelings, I might actually be in a state of distress, sadness, or fear, but because I forcefully push those things away, I can then be perceived as something akin to stoic. This makes sense, and in the past, it made sense why I would do such a thing, but like mentioned already, suppression takes a lot of energy out of you, and for me, the suppression of my feelings causes more harm than help. Aside from emotions or feelings, other qualities, like what you choose to say, can also be suppressed.
Suppressing your opinion on something, or what you truly might want to say, can have positive and negative impacts depending on the context. I might feel like I should say something truthful, but that might actually be harmful, so I either could say something else or say nothing at all, thus suppressing a part of myself. In many cases, I suppress what I truly feel because if I attempt to rationalize the situation in my mind, I find it more desirable and less harmful to say nothing or act in a very contained manner. The last thing I want to do is cause someone pain, so even if someone is actively provoking me, I can suppress what I normally would reactionarily respond with. If I’m tired, yes, this won’t exactly work like intended, but it generally avoids immediate thoughts from being expelled through my mouth or body language.
In our lives, we exaggerate many things, but something that tends to be overlooked is the self. Everyone does some amount of overdramatization of who they are, and certain aspects about them. There are many reasons for someone to exaggerate themselves to others, like to create connections, to be viewed a certain way, or to sway someone in a particular direction. Why, how, and when someone exaggerates is very much dependent on the person and what they believe needs to be amplified so that it is seen by someone else. Outside of social situations, one can exaggerate something like writing in order to be viewed in a certain way by a reader. With this information in mind, one also has to check the line between exaggeration of the self and the intent to manipulate others. We exaggerate much, and we suppress much as well. We might want to hide away parts of ourselves or even pretend like they don’t exist, for whatever reason that can be conjured up. The self can be swayed and altered, but not totally changed, and because of this, humans promote some aspects of the self and downplay others for many of their own reasons. One should be mindful when doing this, and they should act responsibly as not to cause harm to others. Set limits to your exaggeration, or if possible, don’t exaggerate at all, because most would hold the truest self to be valued above all else.