Erikson's Last Stage: Ego Integrity Vs. Despair

Erikson’s last stage, Ego Integrity vs. Despair describe how senior citizens explore the life from retirement perspective. During this stage, we look back our lives and analyze how it was spent. Erikson understood that if we feel remorseful, unproductive, unsuccessful and unaccomplished for the lives we spent, we could become depress, despair and unsatisfied, that could lead to hopelessness and emptiness when looking through the past. Satisfaction in this stage will lead to the path of wisdom which enable us to look back our past with a sense of cessation and completeness and also embrace death without hesitation (McLeod, 2013). Erikson’s stages were presented to guide the people to avoid failure in life. We don’t want to become preoccupied …show more content…
For me, my value in Buddhism, family and education help me make ethical decisions in my life, shaping me for who I am today. In 1989, I was born into a rice farming family living in a river bank village in an Asian country named Burma. Like most people in Burma, our family was also the follower of Buddhism. Therefore, I was born into a Buddhist family and taught the way of Buddhism before I can develop personal moral codes. At young age, I learned very simple teachings of Buddha from the local monks and my parents. Young children were taught to recite and practice Buddha’s five precepts. According to Kohlberg’s theory of Moral Development, I was at pre-conventional morality stage. I followed and practice Buddha’s five precepts taught by my parents and local monks to avoid punishment. Here are the five precepts. First, we have to avoid destruction of life. We were taught it was against Buddha’s teaching and a crime to kill anything that obtain live despite their size. Second, it is wrong to take anything that is not mine or was not given to me. Stealing was a big thing for children. We were punished harshly if we take anything that does not belong to us. Third was abstaining from sexual misconduct (Plamintr, 1994). This was meant for people who perform sexual activities with married person. This was a crime against Buddha’s teaching because, result of having sexual relationship with married person could destroy a family. Fourth was avoiding to tell lies. My parents always teach me the value of trust. Trust build solid relationship and credibility. I was harshly punished if I was telling lies to avoid punishment. Sometime I receive less punishment for telling the truth. The fifth precept was to avoid the “intoxicants that cloud the mind and cause carelessness” (Plamintr, 1994). Drinking