One fine morning, or was it afternoon (I don’t remember), that Greek philosopher Aristotle uttered those two famous words: Know Thyself.
He must have had a nice cup of coffee or two, when he had this revelation that he wanted to share with everyone in the Greek society. It’s another matter that since then, so many centuries later, these two words continue to be shared by mere mortals like me and you.
Probably ‘Know Thyself’ was part of some Greek matrix that Aristotle stumbled upon. After all, if matrix is the cultural, social, or political environment in which something develops, then the thought behind these two words did develop well. In fact, the two words came to be symbolic of self-learning and self-growth for all self-conscious beings since ages.
Call it ‘Know Thyself’ or simply Know Yourself, what is being called upon here is just to understand exactly who you are and what makes you, ‘you’. If you are unique and science says that your fingerprints are dis-similar and unique from any other human among the 7 billion plus alive in 2016 on Earth today, then it is something to think upon.
–> 1. You should know yourself, so that you clearly understand why you think in a certain way and do things in the way that you do them.
–> 2. You should know yourself, so that you can make the correct choices that will serve you in the present and go on to make a great future for you.
–> 3. You should know yourself, so that you can have some emotional control over what you think and how you respond to those thoughts internally.
–> 4. You should know yourself, so that what you project about yourself to others outside matches what you are inside. Any conflict here can result in unnecessary confusion and waste of thoughtful energy.
–> 5. You should know yourself, so that you can be efficiently guided by that deep reservoir of knowledge within yourself that you are rarely aware of during your busy hours of daily living.
So, here’s to you finally getting to ‘Know Thyself’. Cheers. 🙂
A good & thoughtful post..sometimes i do wonder,do i really know myself fully? There r so many times when we r placed in a particular situation,we ourselves don’t know what our reaction would be..it is spontaneous or we don’t want to imagine such a situation…so in such cases the thought comes to the mind -do i know myself.i think when we r unsure of our hidden strengths.then this thought crops up.
True. Once a person knows her strengths then it becomes easier to handle things.