Getting to know yourself.

"One of the most difficult things in life is knowing yourself". Thales observed.

Sometimes you come up with values, beliefs and principles you want people to mind about you. But the truth is you are faking it which is known to you. Do you need to live your life based on the expectations of people from you? Or should you bother about the unrealistic attitudes you really want to instill in People to belief about you? You pretend to be what you are not actually are.  Dare not to be a mannequinin.

In the biomic sense, the universe is big enough to find a niche where you can explore the purpose of your existence. How can you realistically set goals, go about life and also have successful relationships if you don't know who you are or what you want?  You really can't. Not getting to know yourself will lead to confusion and wasting much time in hit and miss situations. We usually degrade the  importance of knowing ourselves  instead of getting it upgraded. Many of us respond to the call of each day reacting to events and just getting by rather than making conscious choices based on who we are and what we want. When we don't know where to go, it is difficult to set goals, get motivated and determine the best course of action. Before we can do any of these things, we must establish who we are. You must acknowledge that unless you know yourself you really can't achieve much in life. You should also know that you have the immense potential to create amazing things and find lasting happiness. But why  is it that you don't even scratch the surface of knowing who you are  let alone figuring out that you have the potential to become anything you choose to be?  I must state that you can't find lasting happiness if you keep oscillating between over- confidence and low self esteem. One minute you are filled with a definite purpose for your life and the next you are completely desolate. Why this shortcoming?

In my curiosity for clarity, purpose and self growth- I have come to realize that asking the right questions, is  sometimes in itself the answers. In some ways, it may seem conterintuitive to have learn to know yourself. Surely that should be a given right? Not necessarily. While your experiences clearly helped shaped you  into the person you are today, this does not mean that you necessarily know who you really are- what you are passionate about and what you want from life. Since you were tiny, you've developed beliefs and values, some good and some not so good as a result of your environment and pressure from society to conform. But the real situation was that when you were younger, you had associated academic achievement and fitting into a group with your self-worth. Having an older sister or brother who was academically Superior to you would have made you worthless and worsen the low self-esteem you had about yourself.  You could at the same time be so paranoid about being liked that you would often force yourself to do things you never had natural ability for.

In retrospect, this all sounds incredibly irrational, but at the same time it makes perfect sense. Despite the emotional turmoil you constantly experience, venturing to be daring became a symbol of infamiliarity. Your thought could have been that if you had worked hard and got into a good University, everything would finally fall into place. And knowing this made you to work extremely hard  and got an offer to study at the University. You had proven to everyone else that you are intelligent but this just seemed strangely hollow. Despite thinking that all this achievements  would make you feel better, you felt  numb. This was what you had wanted and yet you weren't still  happy. Then you started thinking there was something wrong with you. Indeed something was wrong with you. To be continued..