γνῶθι σεαυτόν. Nosce Te Ipsum.

“Know thyself.” This advice, attributed to several individuals, has survived for centuries because of its continued relevance—the idea of knowing oneself, of understanding one’s own strengths, weaknesses, and motivations without depending upon others to recognize and accurately report them, is still incredibly important today.

Knowing oneself includes understanding one’s limitations. The great philosopher Socrates emphasized the importance of recognizing his own ignorance. When a person is able to see his limitations and weaknesses, he is more adequately prepared to defend himself and compensate. If he is ignorant of his failings, he cannot prepare himself and is more susceptible to harm. A physical example of this would be a weak spot in a soldier’s armor—if he knew about the more vulnerable spot, he could hold a shield in front of it or have the armor patched. However, if he had not inspected his armor carefully and noticed the weak spot, he would be much more likely to be injured if he were hit there. But this concept also applies to psychological weaknesses; for example, if a person is aware that he tends to succumb easily to temptation, he can make a conscious effort to recognize and then resist the temptation to do things that could be detrimental to himself or others.

Knowledge of oneself also incorporates awareness of one’s strengths, which one can then use to one’s advantage. Those who do not take the time to consider what their greatest strength is may not be using this strength to its full potential, while those who do recognize their strengths can put them to greater use and even concentrate on improving them further.

Beyond simply recognizing strengths and weaknesses, however, truly knowing oneself also includes an understanding of how one thinks, one’s motivations for acting in certain ways, and even how one is affected by outside forces. This understanding is vital to being able to understand and better connect to others. Being able to recognize in others the same emotions, motivations, and tendencies that one sees in oneself creates a deeper connection to other individuals and also to humanity as a whole.

Gaining objective self-knowledge is not always easy, however. Pride and fear both prevent us from admitting to our weaknesses, while modesty can prevent us from recognizing our strengths. It is often scary to look deeply into oneself and see what is really there, rather than what one wants to or expects to see. Even once one discovers one’s strengths and weaknesses, relating them to others is difficult; these qualities are somewhat personal and objectively writing about them is little easier than initially realizing them. It seems easier to try to avoid dissecting oneself than to discover one’s weaknesses, but in the long run, the unease and discomfort that accompany self-knowledge are outweighed by the benefits of a greater self-understanding. Attempting, then, to objectively discover and relate my own strengths and weaknesses, here is what I have found:

My biggest weakness seems to be my shyness. My friends do not always recognize this characteristic in me because I am comfortable around them and therefore do not really fear confiding in or voicing my opinions to them. But I am generally a quiet person, and under some circumstances this quietness can grow into a shyness that leaves me unwilling to talk almost at all. I enjoy meeting new people, but sometimes making conversation is difficult—what if I say something that gives people the wrong impression of me? What if I just seem boring? I prefer to listen to what other people have to say rather than be the one talking; being the center of attention tends to make me uncomfortable. Unfortunately, unless I make a conscious effort to almost force myself to talk, I can have a difficult time getting to know new people and tend to rely on talkative and outgoing people to come to me first.

Besides being a social hindrance, my shyness can affect my levels of class participation. Teachers sometimes think that I am not paying attention or do not understand the material if I do not speak up in class, but really I just do not want to draw attention to myself by speaking in front of everyone. Again, I almost force myself to talk because remaining silent only perpetuates my relatively detrimental shyness.

Discovering my strengths is more difficult than listing my weaknesses; discerning my greatest strength is harder still. Nearly everything that comes to mind bears a strong resemblance to a college essay. Yet despite its resemblance to a college essay topic, my greatest strength honestly seems to be my desire for knowledge. When I think of what I have achieved so far in life, my greatest accomplishments are often academic—taking hard courses, preparing myself to go to a good college, etc. But my main motivation for taking high-level courses and striving to do well is not so much a desire to out-perform others and impress colleges; rather, it is based in a sincere desire to learn. One of the best examples of my eagerness to learn for learning’s sake is my attitude toward a certain AP class which should remain nameless. I signed up for this AP class expecting a difficult course in which we would cover a certain number of works of literature and also improve our writing skills. However, nearly halfway through the year, the class is moving at a painfully slow pace. I have no reason to complain; every day I get one period in which hardly any thinking is required. I do not need to worry about a heavy workload. I have a good grade in the class because of my performance on the few tests we have. I do not really need to worry about taking the AP test; by May, I will already be accepted into a college and can just as easily take a placement exam to get into a higher level college course. So why do I want to rip my hair out every time we do nothing in class? I honestly just want to learn. I want to read good literature and become a better writer out of pure enjoyment of the subject. I see this desire for knowledge as a strength because since college and a career are not my sole motivations for learning, after I have graduated college and eventually retired from whichever career I choose, my knowledge will still be important to me and I will still want to learn as much as possible.

Having reflected upon my personal strengths and weaknesses, I hope that I have gained a slightly better understanding of who I am. Knowing that my weakness is shyness, I can attempt to be at least a little more talkative. And seeing that my desire to learn is a strength, I can try to always challenge myself even further, learning outside of class when even my AP class is not sufficiently educational. I feel as though now, at least a little more than at the start of this blog, I know myself.