How to Find Yourself

Finding yourself is an enlightening experience. You become self-sufficient. You can do things for
others without any expectations of return. You are no longer a needy child and you become
utterly grateful for all those things people have done for you in the past. Finding yourself is a time
of developing a philosophy or belief system that can carry you through the rest of your life. When
you love yourself and who you are, you will savor and enjoy both life's pain and pleasures. How
do you know you've found yourself? You will be able to help others find themselves. Finding
yourself is not easy, but how can you be yourself if you've never felt connected to who you are,
and you want to find whatever makes you you, then read on.

[edit] Steps

1. Start with a clean slate. Develop your own moral conduct and practice sticking to it. Stop
lying to your boss. And find something you want to keep sacred.

2. Remove vice from your life. Smoking, over-eating, and over-drinking will prevent you from
functioning at your peak.
3. Now that you have a clean slate and you realize some people still think you stink: Forget
about what everyone else thinks! You cannot please everyone. While you might not want to
disappoint the people close to you, they should want you to be happy. As long as you
continue to exist to fulfill other people's ideas of who you should be, you'll never know your
true talents. "He who trims himself to suit everyone will soon whittle himself away." - Raymond
Hull
4. Find solitude. Get away from the expectations, the conversations, the noise, the media,
and the pressure. Take some time each day to go for a long walk and think. Plant yourself on
a park bench and look. Take a long, thoughtful road trip. Whatever you do, move away from
anything that distracts you from contemplating your life and where you want it to go. In
solitude, you should feel independent and self-sufficient, not lonely, needy or afraid.
5. Ask yourself every question in the book, questions that are difficult, that dare to look at
the big pictures, such as:
o If I had all the resources in the world - if I didn't need to make money - what
would I be doing with my day to day life and why? Perhaps you'd be painting, or writing, or
farming, or exploring the Amazon rain forest. Don't hold back.
o What do I want to look back on in my life and say that I never regretted? Would
you regret never having traveled abroad? Would you regret never having asked that
person out, even if it meant risking rejection? Would you regret not spending enough time
with your family when you could? This question can be particularly difficult for some
people.
o If you had to choose three words to describe the kind of person you'd love to be,
what would those words be? Adventurous? Loving? Open? Honest? Hilarious? Optimistic?
Realistic? Motivated? Resilient? Don't be afraid to pick up a thesaurus. Don't be afraid to
choose words that are considered negative. Sometimes your traits that others don't like
become useful only in emergency situations or are valuable to the job you are meant to
perform. If you do have a truly negative trait work on redirecting that energy to something
positive. Exercising compensates for many bad habits and there are hobbies for almost
every vice. Pole dancing is becoming a hobby! Don't wash your clothes much? Try
camping.
6. Write down your answers. Beyond your time alone, it's easy for these thoughts to slip to
the back of your mind and be forgotten. If you have them written down, then every time you
reflect, you can review your notes and take it a step further, instead of answering the same
questions all over again.
7. Act upon your newly discovered knowledge. Do the things that you want to do! Pick
up those water-colors. Write a short story. Plan a trip to Mombasa, Mt Kenya, a walk at
Nairobi Safari Walk. Have dinner with a family member. Start cracking jokes. Open up. Tell
the truth. Whatever it is that you've decided you want to be or do, start being and doing it now.
8. Be ready for dead ends. Finding yourself is a journey, not a destination. A lot of it is trial
and error. That's the price you pay in return for the satisfaction you receive: More often than
not, you hit a bump in the road, and sometimes you fall flat on your face. Be prepared to
understand and accept that this is a part of the process, and commit to getting right back up
and starting over. It's not going to be easy - it never has been for anybody - but if you learn to
see that as a chance to prove how much you want to find yourself, then you'll find fulfillment
and security in your pursuit. When you are yourself; everyone will respect you more and treat
you kindly. Best of all, you will always feel good about yourself.

[edit] Tips

 Love many, but trust few; always paddle your own canoe.

 You're never as bad or as good as people say.

 Resist the urge to feel like you're the only one going through this:

All my life I had been looking for something, and everywhere I turned someone tried to tell me
what it was. I accepted their answers too, though they were often in contradiction and even
self-contradictory. I was naive. I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself
questions which I, and only I, could answer. It took me a long time and much painful
boomeranging of my expectations to achieve a realization everyone else appears to have
been born with: that I am nobody but myself. ~ Ralph Ellison, "Invisible Man"

 Be yourself and make sure no one influences who you are. It will make finding yourself
even harder since people are influencing who you think you are.

 Love yourself for who you are!

 Be friendly to people, smile, help, and you will feel better.

[edit] Warnings

 Do not let other people influence who you are.

 Don't spread bad gossip or otherwise speak ill about other people. Knocking others down
is not the path to self-knowledge. It only compromises your dignity as a human being and
makes others dislike you.
 Do not let family members decide for you what you are destined to do. Their path may
not be the correct path for you. What works for one person may not work for the next.
 Don't lie to yourself and try to be someone you are not. Remember this is about being
yourself. As it is important to not let family members decide, it is also important not to let
society and the media push you in a certain direction, especially when it comes to your
physical appearance.
 Don't let someone else determine who you are! If they love you for who you are, they will
stand by your decisions!