KNOW THYSELF
The Greek philosophers are once again, my first point of reference on this most important topic. For those wishing to understand more about the values of life, discover a purpose, award meaning to their short existence and forge a path towards greater success, the number one priority for the individual, is the quest for knowing what makes them tick.
The classic day thinkers delved into what it means to be alive. They dedicated their time to study and in some instances, lost their lives in the pursuit for life's true meaning. If great men have pained and died for this cause, the study of philosophy should surely then be on everyone's personal curriculum.
We are hugely complex creatures and trying to fully understand what makes us act the way we do, has been the focus of many great minds. Kant, Hume, Nietch and Freud — to mention but a few more modern day thinkers — have all tried to decipher human psychology and to fit the jigsaw puzzle pieces of our minds together.
The question of nature versus nurture debate, crops up a lot in the classics and the conversation still continues with as much vigour to this day. We are made up of genetic traits handed down from our previous generations, but each and every one of us has a character built up from our surrounding environment, experience and circumstances. Our parents are key early influencers, our teachers throughout school life, the inspirations for learning and the hard knocks of the playground our wake up to the harsh realities of what really lies ahead. We begin to mature as adults in our early to mid 20's — usually after our first sustained period of regular employment.
We can attribute certain negative character traits to our unfortunate upbringings, but we can't say they are holding us as indefinite prisoners. We all have choices to change and to improve ourselves, if we so desire it. Our minds just need to be reminded of this fact.
It took me a long time to instigate change in my life and because change is an ongoing process, it is taking a lot of focused effort to continue making desired changes and to investigate the possibilities of further change in my own life. Observing other people and offering up suggestions for improvement, is difficult — especially without them also having some knowledge about the psychological factors that hamper our best efforts. Changing ourselves, is arguably the hardest accomplishment of all. We are all up against a very tricky biological mechanism — ourselves.
It was a difficult task to achieve, but once I witnessed/caught myself out for the very first time and truly saw (albeit for a very fleeting instant), how shockingly deceitful I was being to myself, I instantaneously realised how much of a seemingly impossible task I/we have in our hands! We just can't be trusted. The good news, is that there's help on hand to make it possible to limit our deceitful ways and to understand why we act a certain way. We just need to look for them and take action.
There are tests we can carry out, which will help determine where our emotional strengths/weaknesses lie, define what our preferences are for functioning in social situations, detailed results for learning who we work with best (or worse) and teachings on how we can access our inner selves through well-established ancient knowledge, to more fully understand where our self-depreciating/sabotaging demons hide.
Seek & You Shall Find
The following chapters of this book, contain some useful tools, and techniques, plus reference the knowledge and wisdom of others who have strived to achieve greatness in their lifetimes. These ideas have helped me along the path and through continued daily learning, still continue to help me monitor, assess and improve the inner relationship with myself for better-developing relations with others.
Knowing yourself is the path to self-mastery.
