” The most difficult thing in life is to know yourself”.
This statement was made 2500 years ago by Thales, the very first recorded philosopher. He does not feature in anyone’s top 30 list of greatest philosophers. Nonetheless I find him quite useful and so refer to him on occasion in my blogs and pages. I quote him here because I find the above statement to be true. Do feel free to leave a comment, and disagree by all means if you so desire.
Distractions abound in modern day life. Mobile phones, tablets, phablets, game consoles. Reality tv, ipods, live streams. Social Media. I am completing a Diploma course in Social Media. Brian Rose (YouTube channel London Real). is about to launch a new streaming platform. He is going live by streaming to a million people simultaneously. He says David Icke has been banned from 19 platforms. I’ve got plenty of research to do to discover what the 19 platforms are. Point is, it’s never been easier to avoid self introspection, self analysis, call it what you will. So, is getting to know yourself the most difficult thing of all? Perhaps one of the factors creating the difficulty is it can be a painful experience to begin introspection and focus on one’s weaknesses. It is all too easy to apportion blame outside of oneself and onto extraneous circumstances or persons. The thing is you will always end up as a victim.
You are in the right place to start. or to continue, looking, delving, analysing. This is almost certainly essential if you are going to come up with the reasons why you do the things that you do:
Reason No 1:
- Pleasure and pain. Anthony Robbins is the foremost life coach / motivational speaker on the planet. He has worked with millions of people over the last 40+ years. He has produced a vast canon of material: books. cassette tapes, cds, seminars, workshops. He is as good a source as anyone with regard to understanding why we do the things we do. You can sum up the entirety of his discoveries and teachings in the introductory 3 words to this paragraph. EVERYTHING we do as humans is driven by the twin desires to avoid pain and give ourselves pleasure. Now here’s the thing : we are prepared to expend all our energy in AVOIDING pain. Very little focus goes on getting pleasure. All this applies to seeking to grow, and achieve results in your life. Of course it is easy to get drunk or high or binge on food or endless tv or games streaming. It is easy to give yourself whatever you want. When it comes to achieving things however – qualifications, weight loss, developing a new skillset or mindset, completing a book or a project, – then we procrastinate and self sabotage. Then we give ourselves the pleasure of eating, gaming, getting high – and put off starting or maintaining a something that requires a consistent disciplined approach. That can be done next week, next month, next year.
- Sense of Self Worth. A person with a high sense of self worth will not stay in an abusive or inequitable relationship. A person with lower valuation of their worth will feel that they deserve, or have caused the inequity or abuse. That person may feel obliged to stay around and allow the other person to change.
- Necessity. Time for 2 quotes from the ubiquitous Mr Thales: ” ….nothing is stronger than necessity for all of us must submit to it” and ” Necessity is the strongest of things for it rules everything”.