People who do not know themselves properly are unable to make correct choices for themselves. They are blind to where they are going wrong in life, and they inevitably get into the wrong types of relationships and jobs.
But worry not: help is at hand. On the Internet there are many sites that promise to reveal everything that you need to know about yourself. All you have to do is take one of their questionnaires. One of the biggest such sites boasts a staggering eighteen million paying members.
The questionnaires claim to be able to tell us what career, what partner, in fact, virtually what anything is best suited to our personality, who we are, where we should be heading and so on. A wonderful time saver, you may say, no? No. Absolutely not.
Even if the questionnaires tell us the truth about ourselves, which is in itself doubtful, they will never have the long-term effect needed. They may uncover certain aspects of someone’s personality but the knowledge gained is never internalised. It’s like reading a report about somebody else: reading about them does not mean you know them. Knowing yourself is the first and most important prerequisite for personal growth and self-help.
We all have an inordinate desire to know ourselves better. However, instead of taking the time to do this properly, in the age of the information superhighway we take the easy route and leave the analysis to a computer. The fact that we don’t take the time to know others may be an indictment of society but the fact that we do not take the time to get to know ourselves is a tragedy.
Getting to know yourself does not take ten minutes; it needs a lifelong commitment. Can you make that commitment to the most important person in our lives – yourself? Surely the answer must be yes. But is it? Sadly it is not. In our pursuit of material success we neglect even ourselves. Let us try to change that. Let us start thinking about ourselves constructively. If we do, those around us will benefit as well.
There are two ways to get to know yourself properly. Quoting Judaism’s most important Kabbalistic text, the Zohar, Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liady tells us that each day one should take time to think about oneself. One should think about all that happened during the day, all one’s thoughts, speech and actions, leaving nothing out, including every interaction with fellow humans.
Doing this should take between ten and fifteen minutes, but the benefits are enormous. First, over a period of time, when you think about and examine your thoughts, speech and action, you get to know yourself rather well. In the case of other people, we have access to their speech and action only, so there are limits on how well we can get to know them. But we have no such barriers in getting to know ourselves. All we have to do is to take notice of what we are thinking, speaking and doing.
The second advantage of taking time to think about yourself each day is that you can keep track of your behaviour, both positive and negative. If you become aware of a negative character trait, you will know what to change and if you notice a positive trait, you will know what to enhance. This knowledge is vital to ensure long-lasting relationships, both social and intimate. Similarly, by doing this, you will quickly discover your talents or lack of them, so you will be able to make accurate judgements about career choice and development.
Keeping a diary is another way of getting to know yourself. Many of our great Hasidic masters kept diaries. Diary-writing allows you to see yourself objectively. However, in order for this to be beneficial you must make sure that you review often what you have written and then meditate and internalise the contents so that you know where you are and where you are able to – and are therefore obliged to – go. The fact is that we human beings should be constantly advancing, going forwards and not backwards. To do that, we need only to know ourselves and constantly monitor our own progress.