Personality is destiny: 100 suggestions for shaping a healthy personality

Author: Lai Shouhua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-07-01
Features:
2. "Know Thyself" – The Recognition and Establishment of Individual Personality
The Delphi Oracle of ancient Greece proclaimed, "Know thyself." Socrates was the smartest person in the world at that time. Not understanding the meaning of this oracle, he began to ask various people in the city-state. Through numerous conversations with them, he found that most of them were arrogant and domineering, believing themselves to be omniscient, yet in reality, they had shallow knowledge and could not withstand his questioning. Socrates finally understood the meaning of the Delphi Oracle's pronouncement: he could fully recognize his own ignorance, and "knowing one's own ignorance" was where his intelligence lay. For thousands of years, "Know thyself" has been a famous philosophical proposition, constantly brought up by people. Coincidentally, Montaigne also said, "The most important thing in the world is to know oneself." In psychology, "Know thyself" is also a very difficult proposition. Human scientific experiments, including psychological experiments, often use various animals as subjects. Humans are accustomed to using this experimental method to examine others, treating them as their own experimental subjects. Many developments in scientific civilization have also been achieved through this objective experimentation. For the objective world, we can sharpen our eyes and observe with microscopes thousands or even tens of thousands of times magnified; but for ourselves, how many people can truly objectively examine themselves? So, how should one truly know oneself? The famous religious thinker and philosopher Ivan Illich believed that one can know oneself both from above and from below. "Knowing oneself from above means recognizing oneself from the light within oneself, from the divine source within; knowing oneself from below means recognizing oneself from the darkness within oneself, from the spontaneous demonic source within." He argued that humans possess a dualistic contradiction, being both animalistic and divine. On one hand, humans crave nobility; on the other hand, they descend into degradation. Thus, humans both imagine freedom and descend into a sorrowful world, even falling into eternal damnation. "The consciousness of individual personality illuminates humanity. It is humanity's highest nature and also its highest mission. Even if one is severely oppressed, enduring hardships; even if one suffers from serious illnesses and is about to leave this world; even if one exists only in a possibility or potential, the most important thing is never to lose one's individual personality. Once one loses one's individual personality, one becomes indistinguishable from other things in the world, and one loses one's own uniqueness." For an individual, the individual personality is more important than life. Only by possessing a sound individual personality and achieving freedom on it can one become