Knowing yourself is totally worthwhile. How else would you know what you ultimately want out of life. Without knowing yourself, you can never be sure that you are living life to the fullest.

Know Thyself has been attributed to many Greek Philosophers.

Heraclitus is said to have written: I have inquired of myself.

Jung says that individuation, the act of knowing yourself, begins in the second half of your life, and it starts by accepting your Shadow.

Is knowing yourself worthwhile? Why or why not? Do you try to know yourself? How do you inquire? What have you learned? Has it changed as you grew older?


Rich

'Know Thyself" was written on the portico of the Temple Of Apollo in Delphi. So was, "In Everything, Not Too Much".

It is vital to know what you can do, and what you cannot do.

Yep. So how do you go about knowing yourself?

Rich

If there is to be free will, it can only come about through self-awareness. We must be aware of who we are to decide upon which actions will make us who we want to be.

And, assuming the Self grows or changes over time, is the Self known say at 18 the same Self known at 66?

Know Thyself has been attributed to many Greek Philosophers.

Heraclitus is said to have written: I have inquired of myself.

Jung says that individuation, the act of knowing yourself, begins in the second half of your life, and it starts by accepting your Shadow.

Is knowing yourself worthwhile? Why or why not? Do you try to know yourself? How do you inquire? What have you learned? Has it changed as you grew older?


Rich

I look at it like this: I have an iTunes library that's quite large. It has some stuff from the 60's, but mostly from the 70's, 80's, 90's and 00's. As I loaded up each song, I rated it (1 to 5 stars) and set up a rotation that played the least-recently played song as the next song. It was kind of nice. What I realized, after playing this for quite a while, is that the entire library represents the sum total of my preferences. As it grows, it expands in all directions even though it retains the oldest songs - songs I become further and further from. Many of these oldies aren't really "me" any more, even though I rated them accurately - I just don't want to hear them; they're buried under the constant flow of new preferences. Thanks

i do like jung in general... but on this i think its pointless. especially about the 2nd half of life thing... see i dont know what hes talking about entirely though with the whole capitalized shadow deal....

i have good days and i have bad days...

what have i learned... to enjoy the updates... to appreciate my bad days as much as i appreciate my good days

theres no exception to the cliche that with age comes wisdom... including wisdom of insight.

Of course we change over time; I'm not the same person I was not too long ago.

In each moment I think we are in somewhat limbo between awareness of the past and creating the future.

We may be able to observe tendencies within our selves.
But then is it not at every step that we chose to reinforce those repeated decisions, repeat patterns of self?

So I am thinking that under the layers, the created masks of ego, there would seem to be some centralised self making these decisions of character.

But perhaps in that it is merely consciousness is able to reflect upon itself, that gives the illusion of other. This static and adaptive self.
For instance if I gaze into a mirror, and see my reflection it is not another being seperate from myself.

If the masks we create are indicational of character, or if in my own reactions over longer periods of time perceived patterns begin to emerge. Then I may reflect upon this.

To know thyself, Gnothi Seauton, as Socrates stated, is to know the mysteries of the self.

Change is an interesting topic and the action as well. Some people cannot accept change. I used to be one of those people, however, over the course of time, Ive come to welcome change. Most often, I dont think that change is something that comes without pain and suffering. Perhaps it is all in our perception. Do we see pain and suffering as a good thing or bad? Everything is first created in our minds and then we manifest them into reality. In a sense, we are the directors of our own dramas. We direct each scene and decide who, what , when, and where - and of course why. So why is change so hard to accept? For myself, I think I struggled so hard for a period in my life and finally developed a comfort zone. When that comfort zone began changing and I started to feel the after effects of change, I felt as if Id have to build my self esteem back up because I was basing my self worth on mundane things. it was only when I was able to see myself as my Highest Ideals that I was able to welcome change into my life.

Some of the changes that I think I am going to need to make during my lifetime involve some pretty tedious things. As far as internal changes go, I will continue to slay my ego and pursue my highest ideals. Being a person who has begun to explore the innermost depths of herself, I can say that as with the changes Ive already made, I will continue to evolve with my life and my ethics. As far as lifestyle changes go, I plan on making several changes.

Even if we pick the petals off of a flower and examine them, they each made part of the flower. When there are no petals left, we still have a flower, only its not quite as beautiful.

Knowing thyself means being acceptable to change and adapting to it. It means exploring the innermost parts of our being and defining what we are tolerating and what we are not...what we are allowing to change and what we are not. From the inside out...not the outside in.

Jamie