Educating ourselves on ourselves

It is essential for people to take the time to learn about themselves. Everyone understands and sees things differently from their perspective. It can be beneficial to approach situations in life when your personal strengths and weaknesses are already known. I enjoyed this quote by Michel de Montaigne which said: “ Studying oneself is an endless task, but if you are honest about what shows up in the flow of experience, you can arrive at some tentative conclusions about your own nature, and you can dedicate your life to being true to that nature.” There are no limits on how much you can learn about yourself. The most important thing about choosing to learn about yourself is accepting the results, no matter if you are happy with them or not. If the outcome is not how you expected, working towards achieving the expected outcome is the next step. Another idea that Montaigne gave that I really liked was, “I study myself more than any other subject, that is my metaphysics, that is my physics.” Comparing yourself to others can seem almost impossible not to do. Reading this quote reminded me of the time I was in recovery due to my severe ankle injury, and how challenging it was to not get down on myself for not progressing the same way or as fast as other people may have. After a couple of months, I learned a lot about my body and what is needed in order to return to being healthy again. I needed to realize where I was at in that point of recovery at the time and set small goals that were realistic.

I also learned that I frequently faced mental blocks. When I came across these mental blocks, I learned I needed to be patient and put some extra thought into what I was doing. These mental blocks were frustrating at first, but after some time, I learned it was just the way my brain handled new things after injuring myself. I accepted this about myself and accepted that it was just a part of the process.