Self-awareness, salience, and behaviors from waking to sleeping are key functions of self that contribute to agency and gratitude.

“And this notion of salience, what we pay attention to, what sorts of scripts are going on in our head about ourselves and others, what are we paying attention to? How are we interpreting those in our head and to others, and then most importantly, perhaps to ourselves? And then our actual behaviors, like what we are doing from the time we wake up until the time we go to sleep at night, and then our strivings, our sense of hopefulness, or perhaps lack of strivings.”