To Know One's Self

Benjamin Franklin once said, “There are three things extremely hard: steel, a diamond, and to know one’s self.”

Benjamin Franklin was not the brightest bulb. Pun intended. His well documented stupidity of electrocuting himself with a kite lives in infamy. So why do we listen to his quotes. Knowing one’s self is not hard, you’re just expecting more of yourself than what you are.

“Who Am I?” This is a question that seems to plague young people these days. Like we’re supposed to know our special talents and what we want to do with our lives. We’re supposed to have a “vision” for our future and make “life” goals and reach for the stars, but we end up grasping at straws and mixing metaphors.

Wake up already! “Know thyself? If I knew myself, I’d run away.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe). I know I’m a mess just like everyone else, and if you think you’re not a mess, you’re lying to yourself. Stop worrying about the mess and start cleaning it up.

Everyone wants something to change in their lives; whether it be, a different job or you just want to start buying more absorbent paper towels. The trouble is, you know the thing you want to change but you don’t know what to change it to. The fact is, it’s not that you don’t know yourself, it’s that you don’t know the options. So get out to the store and see what paper towel brands are available in super absorbent.

“Real knowledge is to know the extent of one’s ignorance.” (fortune cookie) When I was growing up, if I didn’t know a word that my parents used I would ask them and they would say, “Go look it up.” I am ignorant because I rarely followed their advice. But I never thought for a minute that I know what the word means when I was never enlightened to the meaning. You can’t know something you never knew. You can’t forget something you never heard. Stop thinking you don’t know something about yourself. You’ve spent your entire life asleep and awake with that person.