Knowing yourself is painful
But neglecting it will ruin your life
How to know that you waste your life, neglecting what truly matters and what you really should be doing?
So easy. So it looks like on the surface.
And why am I so miserable?
The question to answer the question. But here also lies the solution.
People always have no time to pay attention to relationships, actions, and beliefs that have followed them for most of their conscious lives, until they have no time left at all.
Knowing yourself — it’s the ability to view yourself from an honest stranger's perspective in a totally unbiased and liberated from prejudice manner.
I’ve been struggling with self-identification for a long time. Struggled not in a sense of doubting my real identity, but rather by ignoring it completely. I’ve chosen the easy-on-paper and the most convenient, destructive, and arguably popular way to live in modern society —escaping life entirely.
Escape something means running away from the problem, occupying your attention with some activity just to not notice the impact and consequences it brings into your life.
And it almost ruined my life. Almost pushed me to desire to ruin my life myself.
When the repeated failures and disappointments downgraded me to historical lows — its total reevaluation was a pure shock and despair for my inexperienced self.
No human word can describe the feeling.
And you don’t want to be in my position.
That’s why knowing yourself is essential.
All you need to achieve this—the 4-phase cycle:
- LOOKING
- SEEING
- FEELING
- ACCEPTING
More details in the article below:
LOOKING
Looking is a pretty undemanding one. If you try, of course.
Think of what bothers you. Not bad weather, a broken toaster, or verbal assaults at your address.
Think of what is truly important and inside your control: lifestyle, work, relationships.
You can try to seek the answers inside yourself, but in the way of finding them always stands an invincible obstacle no one wishes to face:
Looking into one’s soul requires courage and bravery — seeing requires vulnerability.
Stop reading for a second and ask yourself a question:
Am I genuine with myself?
People are often stuck at the dead-end point of the process —they do not look.
Ignoring the obvious truth, distracting ourselves in any possible way imaginable, and at the same time endlessly wearing a happy-face mask. All is done for the sole purpose of escaping.
It’s a recipe for disaster.
It’s been destroying my life; it's going to destroy yours.
No one says it’s easy, but ease rarely brings fulfillment.
SEEING
There is only one thing in the entire world stopping you from actually seeing yourself.
IT’S YOU.
A bad relationship, toxic friends, a draining and unbearable job — in the madness of the modern world we prefer to ignore the obvious facts, living day by day like robots of flesh and blood.
Today’s social and digital pressures make it so difficult to introspectively reflect on one’s wants, needs, and preferences.
Too hard to know what you want, you say?
I’d say quite the opposite. Just use the right approach:
You can’t look into yourself, while looking into the screen.
That’s right, get the fuck out of your screens.
Consider, it’s not even the greatest harm the gadgets can cause.
The painful fact states the following — you can perform it with every damn addiction humans ever invented: alcohol, drugs, weed, porn, gambling, and the list goes on and on. Just pick up your character and win the game. The game of escaping yourself.
As you pass through the layer of outworld influence, your next enemy is still powerful but a bit easier to defeat — delusion.
Delusions are like magical glass, perfecting everything on the other side.
Delusions exist only in your head, and they’ll be broken in the cruelest way once they meet reality.
Realize the single truth:
You cannot escape.
You can try, endlessly delaying the inevitable moment of pain, but the truth will always catch up with you.
In some cases, however, creating and functioning inside such an artificial bubble can be extremely valuable, but only if you create it on purpose and with a full understanding of its application.
Believing to be someone else than you actually are is game-changing. Doing nothing to achieve your vision is life-wasting.
And painful. Extremely painful.
So just see everything as it is and move on to the next action.
FEELING
Now, after you have acknowledged the problem, what’s the next step?
The most painful one…
TO FEEL.
To admit you are wrong.
You are not good enough.
You are not worth it.
A flood of emotions tears your chest apart, an insane tempo of breathing makes your hands tremble and rivers of tears burst out of your red eyes.
You must feel it, let it through your body.
But…
Even when you see it, nothing can guarantee you gonna choose to act, as action in your position highlights weakness and this is exactly what you’re trying to avoid.
But it’s okay. We’re nothing but dull humans, navigating our lives by pure improvisation.
Nobody knows what the fuck they’re doing — so do you.
We exist and the universe or God, if you believe in him, throws at us joy, sadness, sorrow, and pain and all we can do is react.
The reacting mechanisms differ for everybody, but regardless of yours, the feeling caused by a reaction to a particular situation is inevitable.
Everyone wants to feel the pleasure of winning a prize or achieving a dream, but how many of us eagerly accept the feeling of a breakup or losing someone we love?
We’d better never think of it again.
You feel everything — you just hide it all inside.
And you won’t be able to hide it forever in your inner fortress.
When the long-stored feelings go free, they spread like a deadly plague, infesting every corner of your conscious mind.
I will share my own experience with you. I cried, then laughed, cried again, and turned to beating everything in my reach and sight, listening to the metal-rock frenzy inside my head. And it all in a strange hysterical mood.
Why? Because the person I loved and who I thought loved me back, crushed my heart ;(
Just do it. Just feel it.
I’m not advertising Nike here. Your well-being depends on it.
Literally.
Now, my dear reader, you’re almost there. The last thing to do, before knowing yourself:
ACCEPTING
The final chapter: acceptance.
Accepting flaws.
Accepting failures.
Accepting emotions.
Accepting pain.
And the most important:
Accepting that something has to be changed
Thank you for your priceless time and attention! I appreciate that.
Have a nice day.
