The adventure of knowing yourself

The most difficult adventure we face is knowing ourselves. We all seem to have “inner voices” which tell us what we should do: “You’ve got to have a good job”, “You’ve got to be better than anyone else in the company”, “You’ve got to live life to the full” … each of us has got our own inner voices, and the really difficult thing is being able to recognize our “real” voice, the one that connects us with what we want and really desire deep down. This voice, or core, is a reflection of our deepest being and goes beyond work, relationships, and everything else in our lives. It helps us to answer the question “Who am I?”, beyond any cultural conditioning, family influences or other external factors. Really getting to the heart of our core is extremely difficult … for a variety of reasons. One of these is that it involves taking very painful decisions. I remember the day when I suggested to someone that they might think about starting out on a path of personal development, as they were going through a tough time in their life. After putting up all sorts of excuses, this person admitted that they didn’t want to embark on this path because it would mean splitting up with their partner and saying goodbye to their comfortable life. There’s no denying that this was an honest reply. In the end, they ended up having a child… a classic example of pressing on regardless. Another reason why we don’t “connect with ourselves” (if I may use this rather trite expression) is that we live very “anaesthetized” lives: we are burdened by stress or worries or by the sheer volume of daily activity, all of which serves to separate us from our core.

If we want to listen to ourselves, we need to be still and create space so that we can reflect sincerely and be honest with ourselves. If we can’t do this, let us at least try to recognize the signs that something is wrong in our lives– when we are prey to negative emotions, or we have physical problems, or feel totally stressed out.

The adventure of knowing ourselves is not just a question of knowing what we really want; it also means taking the decisions to achieve it, although this may mean going through a lot of pain in the short term. As I wrote in my book Everyday Heroes, in the end we do emerge from the wilderness; if we deny who we are, on the other hand, then there’s not necessarily any way out. There are people who spend their whole lives in this state of denial for fear of taking the first step; then, in a moment of lucidity, they regret in silence what might have been … too heavy a burden to carry round all of your life.

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