Knowing who you are

I usually try to avoid talking about topics such as this one, because I understand how complex they are, so much in fact that they can’t really be understood by reading one or two articles, and they cannot be fully explored by writing a 700 words post.

However, there are times in which we must take a risk and do something that we’re not sure we can do. In this particular instance, I’d like to offer a piece of advice that could help you understand, or at least tolerate yourself a little more.

Now, before I begin, let’s establish a few things, particularly the way in which I see “the self”. I think, or at least I’d like to believe, that we, humans, are way more complicated than we realize. I’m not trying to compliment our species or to make us feel better about our “superiority”, I’m simply trying to point our ignorance when it comes to ourselves and the complex beings that we are.

Without using even more words than I already used: we know less about ourselves than we’d like to think. To be honest, the more I think about this, the more terrified I become at the realization that we know almost nothing about ourselves. We try to define who we are through a few sentences, a few lines of characterization, a few adjectives, and we think we’ve got it right.

I think we’re never done with understanding who we are. Those who think they know themselves very well often end up frustrated when they do or think or feel something that they’ve never experienced before. And when that happens, they often ask questions such as “what the hell am I doing?” or “what’s wrong with me?”

This confusion comes from ignorance, specifically from being completely unaware, sometimes completely uninterested in understanding just how big of a difference there is between who we think we are and who we actually are.

I gave up a long time ago on trying to pinpoint exactly what type of person I am. I realized that I know very little, and therefore any attempt would be futile. Sure, I could get a few things right, but I’ll never manage to discover everything. The more I think I know, the bigger the shock when I’ll be faced with reality.

And just to make sure that I get this out of the way: there is enough material out there that teaches us how to do this. We just don’t usually learn about such things, for a multitude of reasons. I think it’s fascinating how willing we are to learn about the outside world and about others, but we rarely try to actually learn about ourselves and use what we learn to understand who we are.

Maybe we could get to the point where we figure out all our secrets, all our mechanisms, all our thoughts and the way we function. But that could take a long time, a lot of dedication, and too much work for most people to go through. I’m slowly trying to learn, but the more I do, the more I understand just how little I know.

Because of how complicated all of this is, I ended up accepting the fact that I don’t know who I am, and to consciously separate myself, the conscious being, from everything else. There’s much about myself that works outside of my consciousness, and the more I try to force things to be as I wish them to be, the more frustrated and lost I am.

So, why even try to force myself to be something that I am not? How can I even achieve that, if I don’t know who I am in the first place? How can you model something that you can’t even see, touch and understand?

All of this is why I tried to see myself as a mystery. I don’t know who I am, I accept that. This brings me peace. But I can try to learn. I can try to understand. And I do that by simply observing myself, allowing self expression and asking questions. I stopped being a dictator who tries to force whoever it is that I am to do whatever I think is good, and I became an observer who merely tries to influence things.

After all, what right do I have to tell myself to just sit the hell down and do the work that must be done? Why does my consciousness have the right to dictate how I feel about something that I clearly don’t want to do? How could I be surprised that my entire being revolts against the idea of doing something unpleasant? Work? Exercise? Effort? What right do I have to force myself to do those things?

Well, those are questions that have quite clear and simple answers. Work must be done, in order to survive, regardless of whether we want to do it or not. Exercise is a must, if we wish to be healthy. Effort is what allows us to achieve our goals. But although these things are important, part of us still hates doing them and sometimes that leads to procrastination, distraction and a bunch of other obstacles.

But those are only a few aspects of life. What about socializing? What about talking to other people? What about liking something that you always hated, and disliking something you always thought you loved? What about thoughts that go through your mind that disgust you and make you wonder what the hell is wrong with you?

Once again, when I think of those things, I try to remind myself that I’m not who I think I am. I don’t know much about myself. Therefore what right do I have to judge myself based on those things? What kind of judgement is that which comes out of ignorance?

Therefore, this is what I do: I keep quiet, I tolerate, I allow, I accept and then I ask questions.

Why don’t I want to work? What is this unpleasant feeling that I experience when I sit down with the intention of doing something productive? Is it frustration? Is it anger? Is it unwillingness? Fear? Why do I get this particular feeling and not another? What’s the reason behind all of this? Can this problem be solved? What if I try to do just a little bit of that work? What if I do half of it? What if I do 80% of it? What if I change the way I do things? What if I take a break — how does that make me feel for the moment?

I ask such questions without judgement or with the intention of finding an answer NOW and then get back to work. I ask them so that I may understand myself a bit better. And if I get even one answer, I’m happy.

I began to understand, in time, that forcing myself to do certain things or to think in a certain way makes me nothing but a tyrant. If I try to do the same to anyone else I’ll get in trouble and experience resistance. But apparently I can be this abusive to myself, because there are no immediate and obvious consequences. At least none that I am aware of, until it’s too late.

So, try to be kinder to yourself. Stop thinking that you know who you are. Accept that you’re a complex being, and that you’re not necessarily the person you think you are. There’s more to you than you think, and you’ll never get to know who you are by being mean, tyrannical and by trying to force yourself to do what you clearly don’t want to.

I’m not saying that you should use all of this as an excuse to never do what you must. Obviously that’s not possible. It would be impossible to have a decent life with such an attitude. But just because you don’t want to do something it doesn’t mean that you must hate yourself and be mean to yourself about it. You don’t even know why you feel the way you feel, so how about you try to find out instead of just brushing your feelings aside and continuing to do what you always did?

Is this a solution to all your problems? Absolutely not. Is this the way in which you’ll understand who you are? I don’t believe it is. But I think it’s a start. And a start is better than nothing. Being such a complex being means that getting to know everything about yourself is a very difficult endeavour. But trying to do it by being patient, understanding and by asking questions is, in my opinion, a much better way than by being mean and ignorant.