The more you know about yourself, the better you are at adapting life changes that suit your needs.
Of course, self-awareness is a big part of both therapy and philosophy.
Though it may come as a surprise to some philosophers, self-knowledge requires more than intellectual self-examination.
It demands knowing something about your feelings.
In my experience philosophers are, in general, not the most emotionally attuned individuals.
Freud, more than the sage of Athens, grasped the moral importance of emotional self-transparency.
The more you know about your own habits, the easier it is to improve on those habits.
In most cases, this takes a little experimentation.
I felt terrible everyday and the papers I wrote were horrible.
At some point I realized I do best with a tidy workspace and early morning writing.
It took me years to figure this out.
Once I did, I never went back.
It’s step one.
Our minds are feeble and ripe with biases that color our decisions.
To bring back my example, this was my problem with working at night.
I saw myself as a night person and never even thought about trying to work in the mornings.
I’ve had plenty of similar revelations over the years.
But just because we suck at it doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.
Aswe’ve talked about before, the main idea here is to study and criticize your decisions.
Even better, find some trustworthy friends to talk with and listen to their criticisms.
Keep a journal: As Kahneman noted above, our memory colors the past pretty deeply.
If you want a more accurate gauge of yourself, ajournal is a great way to get it.
It’s important to remember that self-awareness is introspection, but it’s not navel gazing.
You might not realize how often what you’re doing doesn’t correlate to what you want.
Photo byTina Mailhot-Roberge,Dimitar Nikolov,Sodanie Chea.
