strangers who write back variations on either “Me, too” or “Get your act together.”
What do these cases have in common? Each seems to display a lack of self-knowledge, or a sense of who they really are. They are poignant examples of what happens when people go chasing relationships, driven by some unnamed need, without a sense of self.
To some of us, knowing who we are and what we want comes as naturally as breathing. If you’re one of these people, consider yourself blessed with the ability to guide yourself in life. But for the rest of us, self-knowledge can be a periodic or perpetual struggle.
It’s not always easy to know yourself. Why is it so hard? Knowing who you are and what you want is not simply a
matter of sitting down and saying to yourself, “Oh, I’d like this. I want that. Yes, that’s who I am.” In the first place, your view of self might be muddled or hampered.
You could be in denial about certain aspects of your personality, because you don’t like those aspects of yourself and would rather not deal with them. You could be blind to what you really need in life, because your view of things has been obscured by fear, greed or hate, brought about by traumatic events in the past. You could be facing pressure from your family, friends, colleagues and neighbors, to act a certain way. You could even be living under tremendous cultural or economic pressure to conform to a particular mold, suitable to