Do you mind if I go on a bit of a rant? I haven't done one in a long time, and it's overdue. It is about something that frustrates me to no end. It is near and dear to my heart, and as often as I attempt to do it, I seem to make little forward progress.
The problem is the more we discover about ourselves, the more we find how little we know. Please don't take it wrong. I do not intend to make this rant negative. I want it to motivate us to keep going. To never give up or give in, no matter how futile it can seem at times. Whether we make progress or not!
Here is the question I asked myself some years ago that started me on this trek to on-again, off-again frustration.
"How well do I know myself?"
How well do you know yourself?
Let me ask you – "How well do you know yourself?" Now that may seem like a silly question to some, yet it will make complete sense to others. We are complex beings, and how well we know ourselves is the subject of much writing over the years.
Mankind has long recognized the importance of knowing ourselves. You can go back more than 2000 years to when an ancient Greek philosopher and polymath said:
"Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom." Aristotle (384-322 BC)
While this statement has many merits, how many truly wise people do you know? If someone has a great deal of wisdom, there is a chance they may know themselves well. Yet, how many people fall into this category? Not many, eh?
Going back in time further, we find the founder of the Academy, the Western world's first institution of higher learning, who said:
"Do thine own work, and know thyself." Plato (428-348 BC)
And his famous teacher who said:
"My friend...care for your psyche...know thyself, for once we know ourselves, we may learn how to care for ourselves" Socrates (470-399 BC)
Why would these ancient philosophers suggest we know ourselves if it was not necessary? But Socrates said one of the most direct, perhaps even harshest things ever said:
"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates
Old Socrates was a tough man. He didn't hold back in that statement. Yet, how many people do you know who take time to examine their life in earnest? Too many people on Facebook and Twitter must rarely examine their lives, if ever. If they did, you can bet they would post far less often!
In more recent history, one of our nation's founding fathers published the following in Poor Richard's Almanac (1750):
"There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one's self." Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)
Blind spots
But surely, we know far more today, don't we? Not so fast. If anything, the realization that we should know ourselves better is still setting in. You can find countless current articles and studies that show most of us do not know ourselves as well as we think. A simple way to understand this is to ask yourself, "Do I have any blind spots?"
Be careful how you answer this question. If you knew yourself well enough, you would have zero blind spots, right? The issue is no one is free of blind spots in their life. What is a blind spot exactly? Let's look at the American Psychological Association definition.
"Blind spot - a lack of insight or awareness—often persistent—about a specific area of one's behavior or personality, typically because recognition of one's true feelings and motives would be painful. In classical psychoanalysis, it is regarded as a defense against recognition of repressed impulses or memories that would threaten the patient's ego. See scotomization." APA Dictionary of Psychology
Using that definition, I can assure you everyone has blind spots! In fact, a recent study shows everyone has a blind spot when it comes to bias (Researchers Find Everyone Has a Bias Blind Spot).
Other ways we do not know ourselves
While you can spend countless hours online learning the many ways we do not know ourselves, here is a short list to pique your interest.
We don't know ourselves when we:
- act to appease other people.
- dislike being alone.
- do not like change, yet not know why.
- feel lost and haven't a clue what to do next.
- know we should do something yet don't do it.
- procrastinate.
- buy things on a whim.
- have little discipline in our life.
- have no dreams or goals in life.
- can't hold a job.
- can't understand why we offend some people.
- are unable to get along with certain people yet do not understand why.
- are not open-minded, but narrow-minded.
- are stuck in our career.
- can't stay in a relationship or keep getting divorced.
- are unable to take different perspectives about many things.
What can you add to this short list? I could go on for pages, but suffice it to say, few of us know ourselves as well as we think we do.
Do you see my frustration? I am beginning to accept that I will never know myself completely. Still, it is disconcerting how often I find I do not know myself in the little things. For example, when it comes to politics, I see things one way and one way only. Everyone else must be wrong! Yet, I know this is more of a personal limitation, even though I don't want to admit it. There are many other such things, but I won't bore you with them now.
I wish I knew myself better, and I am making progress, however as I said before, the more I learn about myself, the less I seem to know! Fortunately, or unfortunately, this is normal for anyone that is truly learning. It is a part of the human condition. We humans are far too complex to understand everything about ourselves, even if we lived a thousand lifetimes.
Final thoughts
In the end, I realize I can never know myself completely, but I can continue to understand myself better in a more meaningful way over time. The encouraging thing about seeking to know myself is how much I can learn and can continue to learn over the years. The subject (me) has endless depth, after all!
The better you know yourself, the better your life can become, not just for you but for everyone else in your life that matters.
"When a man begins to understand himself he begins to live. When he begins to live he begins to understand his fellow men." Norvin G. McGranahan
Writing this article has been cathartic, and I thank you for bearing with me. I realize I must continue to learn about myself and accept that I will never know everything. While it may frustrate me at times, I will continue to grow, be a better person, live a better life, help others, and share life with those I care about most. That makes life worth living!