That’s what they carved into the temple wall in ancient Greece. And I’ve always wondered — why is knowing yourself the hardest thing in the world?
We were always told: serve others. Provide value. That’s how you get paid. That’s how you survive. But no one ever tells you how to figure out who you actually are. What you actually need. What you should say no to.
School doesn’t teach it. Our parents probably never learned it either. So we’re left to figure it out on our own.
But honestly? Knowing yourself isn’t that complicated. It comes down to two things.
The first is the physical self.
Are you healthy or struggling? Strong or tired? Light-skinned, dark-skinned, somewhere in between — it’s all just description. Seeing yourself clearly doesn’t mean you have to feel bad about who you are. It doesn’t mean you have to envy others either. Envy and self-doubt won’t get you anywhere — they just blur the view. What we’re really trying to do is just see things as they are.
The second is the inner self.
We all have memory. Emotion. Judgment. Logic. Some stronger, some weaker — but everyone has them. The inner world is harder to read than the physical one. It shifts. It hides. You can’t always see it clearly.
But when you’re making a choice — when you’re weighing one thing against another — that’s when who you really are shows up. What you choose, and what you walk away from, says more about you than any test ever could.
If you want a little help getting a clearer picture of where you’re at right now, give this a try.
It won’t give you all the answers. But it might point you in the right direction.
