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How do you know your self? Are you fundamentally defined by your own process of self-discovery or by how others perceive of you?
The process of self-discovery is costly. There can be objective costs: therapy is one way to fast-track self-knowledge, but you’ve gotta pay up for that kind of efficiency and guidance. (And, from my experience, if you have the means, the cost is well worth it!) But, no matter how great your therapist is, self-knowledge cannot primarily be purchased with cash. The majority of self-discovery is paid for in pain.
The Hell of Self Discovery
Getting to know yourself requires prying open the gates and peering into your own personal hell. You keep those gates shut because you know opening them invites reliving the torment of the evils committed to you and by you. There, in that pit, your past mistakes, current failings, and most profound insecurities stare you in the eyes like blood-thirsty zombies, reminding you that you’re a far cry from the polished persona you’ve portrayed to everyone around you. It’s not pretty. It’s certainly not comfortable. And you, like most people, may think the journey within to discover who you really are is not worth it, so you look for another way.
An Easier Way?
If you’re not going to find yourself by looking within, you have only one other option: to know yourself from how other perceive and value you. In this form of self-knowledge, perception is reality. Therefore, if you can craft enough people’s perception of you as successful — or at least respectable! — in your work, relationships, and hobbies then that is who you are. You are who others perceive you to be.
You can get pretty good at this game, too! There are no shortage of tools to help you reframe every one of your shortcomings as a symbols of strength. You can be selective about what you share and live a highly edited, carefully scripted life that leads people to affirm the persona you’ve created. The affirmation will feel good: people see you as you want to be seen!
The Hell of Your Own Making
But there’s a dark side to this approach as you’ll soon find your life’s work is to constantly shape and maintain the perceptions you want people to have of you. There is no reality so fragile as one defined by perception. So you’ll always be trying to create separation between your true-self and the self you want to portray. You’ll always feel the threat of your demons escaping and wreaking havoc on your carefully curated image. Worse still, in the rare moments of quiet and stillness, you will feel that your life is a lie. That your whole existence is performative and sooner-or-later someone will catch on to your act. Such a life is a whole ‘nother kind of hell, and it’s one of your own making.
You have two choices: either go through hell to get to know yourself or create hell to avoid yourself. But, only one of these hells has an exit door, and I bet you know which one it is.
The Escape from Hell
Jesus said, “The truth will set you free” (John 8:32).
The path to all self-knowledge and self-discovery is the rigorous pursuit of truth. It is not an easy path, especially if you’ve been walking down the road of defining your reality through the false perceptions others have of you. Truth is by nature confrontational as it tolerates no lies, partial truths, or twisting of reality. But the truth isn’t a bully. Yes, the truth will bring you face-to-face with the demons you’ve tried hardest to avoid, but it strips them of their power. Yes, the truth will humble you, but it will never humiliate you. Yes, the truth will cost you greatly, but it will return whatever you have lost with compunding interest.
The truth is surgical: it cuts and can leave scars, but its purposes are always restorative. The truth leaves you better and stronger. It leaves you whole. The truth imparts confidence and clarity. The truth sets you free.
Knowing yourself requires a fundamental commitment to the truth and willingness to be honest with and about yourself at every turn. But as you step out of the shadows and into consistent exposure to the truth, your shame will be transformed into strength as you boldly walk in the freedom of having nothing left to hide.
Reality will be your reality. Perceptions be damned.
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