Ask a simple question. Do you know yourself?

Some people may laugh when they see the title, and think this question is too silly. Who doesn't know himself? When chatting with others, we often say this sentence, "I know myself best." But in fact, do you know yourself?

When I was a child, one of my dad's favorite words to me was "You can't". No matter what I do, as long as he is dissatisfied, he will use this sentence to evaluate me. Even when I didn't do anything, he would compare my neighbor's children and add "you can't." Every time I hear him say this, I feel very wronged and inferior, so I gradually become sensitive to my self-esteem. Even if someone tells me a negative joke, I will believe it and often get angry for a long time.

I have lived with this kind of cognition of being denied by others and self-denial for many years. Slowly, I don't think I can do it. I dare not speak in public or sit in the front row of the meeting. The leader gives me a task, and I never take the initiative unless he gives me some pointers. When I have dinner and get together with friends, I seldom talk as long as there are people I don't know, for fear of making a fool of myself and being looked down upon by others.

Until later, when chatting with a friend I have known for a long time, he said to me, "I feel that you are quite inferior." I didn't mind saying, "Yes, I don't think I have anything to be proud of." He said, "No, you are kind, sincere, friendly, intelligent and hardworking." I was shocked to hear such an evaluation. I never thought that I still had so many advantages in his eyes. It turns out that not everyone thinks I can't. So I talked a lot with him that day, and I had a feeling of meeting a bosom friend.

That is, from then on, I became confident and courageous, and often dared to say and do. Although life has not changed much, my people have become much more cheerful and open-minded, and my mentality is much better than before. I have also made many achievements in my work, which have been recognized by leaders and colleagues. More importantly, I have more friends around me. I am very grateful to that friend for letting me know myself again and change myself.

There is a concept of "self" in psychology. How to know yourself is a topic that many psychologists study. Psychologists believe that each of us thinks we know ourselves best. In fact, our understanding of ourselves may be one-sided in many cases. More often, we look at ourselves and know ourselves from the eyes of others. Psychologists call this phenomenon of knowing oneself by judging objects "mirror me", treating others as a mirror and seeing themselves from it. And this kind of self-knowledge often leads us to draw wrong conclusions.

When others deny us more, we will feel bad, ashamed and inferior. When people say that they often praise us, we think we are really that good. We don't think that praise is sincere or just to make us happy. Because we don't really know ourselves, when we get along with others, we will express ourselves wrongly, say the wrong words and do the wrong things, which will make the originally good relationship worse, make friends misunderstand, lose the people we love most, and make others hate us.

"Know yourself" is the motto engraved on the wall of Apollo Temple in Delphini, ancient Greece. The philosopher Socrates also said that the hardest thing for people is to know themselves. In fact, many times we don't know ourselves, we don't deny ourselves excessively, and we can't see our own advantages and strengths. Is to think too highly of yourself and think that you can do anything. So we are either caught in the whirlpool of inferiority complex and worried, or arrogant in the cloud of excessive narcissism.

We don't know ourselves, so sometimes we pay too much attention to others and care too much about shaping our perfect self according to their requirements and standards. The result is that we just can't see our true selves, which is actually what psychology calls projection identity. That is, others project their own evaluation on us, but we accept it and think it is us, but others' evaluation is also a double-edged sword.

Zhuge Liang, a famous strategist in the Three Kingdoms period, also said, "Don't flatter yourself, don't be conceited", that is, we should look at ourselves objectively and know ourselves correctly. Many people are saying "be yourself". In fact, to be yourself, you must first know yourself, really know yourself, and know yourself. We should not only know ourselves from the subjective consciousness level, but also from the judgment of others, and also use the subconscious to discover our inner true self, so as to fully understand ourselves and form an accurate self-judgment.

Knowing yourself is not a simple matter. Maybe some people will take many years to know themselves, and some people will never really know themselves. It is also important to know ourselves, which will affect our life.