We don’t know our strengths and the social mirror distorts our self-conception further – where then can we begin knowing ourselves?

Answer Podcast

Transcript

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so firstly we don’t know who we are and the social mirror also gives a distorted picture of who we are so then where do we start understanding who we are actually yeah you know philosophy we should not go so much into the head that we lose our legs so we do know who we are at a basic level okay I am so and so person and I have done this I can do this, I can’t do this we look at ourselves, we know certain skills I have certain abilities I have so basically we talk about this in terms of not so much of there is our present status and there is what we aspire to so sometimes we just set up goals that are incompatible with who we are then that becomes very frustrating so if we objectively calmly understand ourselves that means not in the heat of the moment, say if I have to make a career choice should I do this or should I do that not in the heat of the moment just sit back and think of ourselves, write down our thoughts when I did this this worked out very nicely I liked it so we write down our own experiences so psychologists talk about four windows what is known to us you know probably about this, what is known to us what is known to others so if we consider known to me, yes known to others, yes and something is known to me but is unknown to others something is unknown to me but known to others something is unknown to me and unknown to others so you could say that our personality our characteristics they fall in some of these qualities they fall in these four quadrants so basically the something which we know and the something which we don’t know so if we associate with friends, they would tell me you are good at this yeah I never thought about it I am good at it but then they may tell us sometimes just by the experience of living we are thrust into situations which are difficult and somebody else crumbles in that situation somehow we are able to do well in that situation I have this ability to cope with this kind of situation so it’s you know life a it a life is like we are propelled into life life is just going to move on and in one sense our life is a journey and in one sense we are the drivers of our life but in other sense you know we are just pushed into life so we just have to make the best of what we know so basically rather than becoming insecure we start with what we know this is what I know about myself and should I be doing this this is what the whole world is saying get this kind of job, get this kind of degree get this kind of career should I be doing this look at ourselves look at our own inspirations and there is no need to make a radical change immediately but gradually as we observe ourselves we learn more about ourselves so the social mirror primarily what it does is it just creates some ideals and it makes everyone want to be a xerox copy of their ideal when a particular movie or film has a particular hairstyle and everybody wants to develop that hairstyle so that’s a very literal way that xerox copy is happening but otherwise also it happens like that so broadly just move from where we are what we know about ourselves where I should go this is what I am good at this is what I am ok at and gradually as we just go through life observe ourselves, interact with friends leave it done and then we can move forward so it’s not a one time process it’s not a one time decision just move forward step by step as we were doing something when we come initially to a course called discover yourself but you know discovering yourself is a lifelong journey so we keep understanding ourselves more and more and as we keep understanding ourselves more and more we start developing ourselves more let me answer your question