How do one goes about knowing oneself? Is there a twelve step process you can do? Do you ever really know oneself? Would you be happy knowing oneself, or disappointed?
For all but a few of us, the battle for knowing oneself has become a harsh lifelong struggle, yet sometimes a life altering one as well.
All of us have to one degree or another the notion that something in their life isn’t “perfect”, something you wish was different, either in how you act, respond, speak, think, or feel about events in your life. Whether that is that you wish you had the strength to turn down that last piece of fried chicken, the willpower to not skip the gym, the self-discipline to not yell at your children with harsh words, the self-denial that your life isn’t great and it’s not your fault, or any other number of events.
I know from experience, spending too much time thinking about what’s wrong with your life is counterproductive to actually getting it resolved, more than what most people would imagine. But where do you draw the line? If you don’t ponder your life’s story, how do the revalations on changing it come to you? You’ve heard the phrases…when you die, who will actually come to your funeral?; what legacy will you leave behind and will you be proud of it?; what accomplishments did you do with your life?
I think expectations are too high in most people. Someone who, in their own mind, says ‘If I change this about me, this will occur, and then all will be good.’, so they do said change, said occurence happens, yet not all is good, is bound to have resentment to any further notion of change, or at the very least resentment towards having a different outlook on things. Yet this resentment remains as a nagging feeling in the back of their head as they do more and more pondering about their oneself as they can’t find peace with themselves and they know this process they are going through is where they will find what fixes the issues they have with themselves and their lives. In their own mind anyway…
So what’s the answer? Is there a single question that can be answered in all that?
To me it boils down to a single yet simple concept…confidence.
If you think about what are the real root of most issues we have with ourselves you can narrow down to a few basic issues, all in some way dealing with confidence.
We don’t think we’re capable of change. We don’t think we’re able to implement change without help or without supervision. We doubt the ideas in our head will actually work, ‘surely someone has a better idea that’ll work, I’ll keep looking’. We’re afraid to fail. We don’t think we can come up with an idea, causing us to not even try nor as much as ask for one. We’re afraid to be judged by our actions. We’re uncertain of the consequences. We don’t think we could maintain the change for as long as would be required (some changes are a lifelong change, after all).
Put all that together, see someone else make even a small change successfully, and no wonder you instantly think you are out of their league, that your not as good as them and that you’ll amount to nothing in your own life, that you better move on. I myself have friends I used to think were so much above me, I was lucky to even be considered a friend of theirs and to know them, as I had no talent to bring to that circle.
Ridiculous…
Everyone can think of one thing they’ve done in their life that they were proud of, that brought a smile to their face and a beat to their heart. A feeling of accomplishment. Whether that be volunteer work for a noble cause, giving of one’s time that proved fruitful, making a sacrifice that was not returned but you were knew that before you made it and still did it, or any number of things. To us, those were shining moments in our lives. Where did they all go? Most people don’t have recent ones, just distant memory ones.
If you took out the pride, got rid of the ego boost it gave you, removed the beaming smile, and really thought about what you did most of us would find that a minor change, if not even a mediocre change in the long run. Volunteer work never stops being needed, praise never stops being needed, people never run out of needs, and you can only do so much. So what does this dreary news mean?
All things, all occurences of change, all actions that are positive, well…are positive. A change, no matter how small, is a good thing and worth doing. Even if the outcome is shortlived, it is worth doing. As hopefully you showed yourself in the last paragraph, what wound up being a small change in retrospect really made an impact in your life, so why not do it again, do more of it, do things like it, things that will have similar outcomes. What do you have to lose?
If only it were that easy. Even when the answer is right in front of our faces and well without our grasp and capability, we sometimes fall flat. What defines us is how we react to that.
For me personally, I am sure in that my life is not where I want it. I am confident my life will be where I want it, one day. I am confident that I am tackling the issues I can change slower than I am capable of doing, and so look forward to accomplishing more with each new day. I accept that some things that could have been changed by now, aren’t. But I am confident I will accomplish them one day. I am sure a positive outlook accomplishes more than a negative outlook with a plan. I am sure things will change, sometimes at a rate faster than I wanted or expected, but definitely slower too. I am sure that will be ok.
In the long run…what more do you need than confidence? The long run ends at death, that you can be confident of.
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