The Real Magic Happens When We Arrive at Who We Are
Living authentically is one of the most liberating aspects of living. You get to live life on your terms even if you’d been coerced and or conditioned to act otherwise. Yet, it’s one of the hardest things to do when it comes to the need to cultivate a sense of self — covering self-awareness, self-belief, and self-expression. So hard that we often remain stuck where we’ve been for so long it hurts.
But this is the point of curiosity; it kick-starts the process of acquiring knowledge which further expands our enthusiasm to the point of learning about who we are.
This was the case for me.
Although I was stuck in many unhealthy down-spiraling loops, I was constantly searching for more. Invariably seeking for an avenue to improve me whether it be through the movies I watched, reading, writing, anything at all.
Through these means, I began to gradually draw a map of my true nature; attributing certain traits to who I am. I started defining myself through certain things that I saw and read of — things I thought were my likes and dislikes, strengths and weakness, pet peeves, and manageable traits. By so doing, I was becoming aware of who I was, and the more I did, the more I wanted to know.
Until I came to the conclusion of definitive traits about me — such as being conscientious, perfectionist, impatient, highly organized, to mention but a few.
That’s how self-awareness is cultivated. You have to be willing to go out on a leap to find out who you truly are, basically by being a curious person.
As soon as I could pinpoint some traits that make up my being, it became easy to shed things that weren’t aligned to it. For example, I started disliking noisy areas and noisy people a whole lot more.
Once you’re more attuned with your personality, it becomes easy to mark places where you are doing well and places where you need to improve on. But until you do that, you’d always answer to what others define you as, tell you to do, expect you to change from and to be. And if this continues, it escalates to losing yourself.
But losing oneself isn’t a total thing. It’s revocable. It takes a lot more work than if you’d listened to your guts and ascertained who you were in the first place. But it’s not impossible. It entails undertaking the same process of being curious about things, cultivating self-awareness and hence self-belief to navigate you to the point of self-improvement. As soon as I could pinpoint some traits that make up my being, it became easy to shed things that weren’t aligned to it. For example, I started disliking noisy areasand noisy people a whole lot more.
Once you reach that point, you’ll always want to know and do more to continue to improve. More like a positive feedback mechanism.
In recapitulation:
One of the best things in life is knowing who you are and standing by it. But it doesn’t just happen innately, rather it needs lots of work to get there. The work of the mind such as developing the habit of knowing more, otherwise known as curiosity, becoming self-aware through that, believing in yourself thus to ascertain the different traits in you that need improving on, and ultimately improving on them.
Self-improvement is one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself because you are free to continue to be yourself, a greater version each day, and worthy of emulation by others to do the same.
Nothing beats this!
