How Well Do You Know Yourself???

I believe it was more than 15 years ago, when I came across a quote by Bruce Lee. He once said that all forms of knowledge are ultimately self-knowledge.

It is only fairly recently that I, well into my forties, have begun to not only see but feel the significance of his quote and the incisiveness of his mind.

I have come to see that knowing oneself, not in a narcissistic sense of course, is more important than knowing anything else in life. The ability to think for ourselves has never been more critical at a time when changes are happening ever so quickly.

At a time when lifetime employment is a thing of the past, and the rat race has never been more mindless and endless, we must start searching the depths of our hearts and be not only the best but also truest version of ourselves.

What does ‘knowing oneself’ means to you? Yes the more things we know about ourselves the better. But first and foremost, we must know, in a realistic sense, what our limitations are. Knowing one’s limitations is more important than knowing our strengths.

Of course it is important to know one’s own strengths too. But if one does not know his/her limitations but only his/her strengths, he/she will not be able to utilize his/her strengths as effectively and efficiently as he/she wants to.

What do I mean by that?

Allow me to use my own personal example to make my case. In my high school days, I was in the first class. That means our class of 40 something had the best scoring students in school. Although I did not see myself as a dumb student per say, I was evidently never a bright one.

Maths, physics and science were never the subjects that I excel in. Never. But because it was the best class (of the grade/form) in the school, naturally I had some of the school’s smartest kids as my classmates.

The few kids I hung out with were not the studious or hardworking type. We were playful. Yet, just days before our exams, we would cramp the term-long studies into a few short days and highly intense hours. While my smart friends were able to still get good results despite their last-minute revisions, I always got into the trouble of either completely flunking the paper or just barely getting a miserable pass.

And then in my early working days upon graduation, I was still very much ignorant about my own limitations. I am someone who needs at least seven hours of good sleep in order to be reasonably productive the following day. Again, I would hang around with friends till late at night and go to bed well past midnight.

Needless to say, my performance at work wasn’t not impressive at all. I took the easy way out by switching from one job to another and eventually proving to myself and the world that a rolling stone does indeed gather no moss at all!

Years went by so quickly. Well into my forties now and reflecting upon my less-than-impressive and could-have-been-better achievements in my life and my career, I am starting to see the effects of my own causes many years back. If I am asked to give some sincere ‘advice’ to our younger generation, this post is for them.

Please forward to them too if you find this post useful. Hopefully they can learn from my costly mistakes. But some lessons really have to be experienced first hand to be learnt. That is my life lesson I had to pay. I paid for it with my youth – the best and most promising years of my life.

Had I known my limitations, I would have accepted the fact that I am different from my classmates. And unique too! If they can get score 90 marks by just studying for 20 hours but I need to do 200 hours, I just had to do that. I am not them and they are not me. They had their ways to score 90 and I cannot expect their ways will work for me. Simply because I am not them!

I have my limitations BUT I too might have some strengths which they never had. But I was too busy following the crowd and had no time for myself. Neither introspection nor self-reflection had ever crossed my mind then. Now it is two decades or so too late. Of course it is still better than never. Remorse and regrets? Yes, but not in a morbid sense. Constructive regrets, if you like.

The consequences always depends on what we do now. For, as sung by Bob Dylan, just when you think you have lost everything, there is always a little more you will lose. At least I know what I need to do now. Yes, ‘at least’, haha… So I am sharing this post with whoever cares to read. Hopefully, this humble little post can improve some lives and then some…

Have a fruitful day ahead, people!

PS: Below are two lines of the actual lyrics of Trying to Get to Heaven by Bob Dylan.

When you think that you’ve lost everything
You find out you can always lose a little more