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Self-KnowledgeSelf-knowledge is a simply a matter of understanding yourself and knowing what makes you tick. Each of us is a unique individual and not one of us is perfect because we are human beings. The perfect human being is yet to be born. The first step to achieving what you are capable of is to know about yourself - all your strengths and your weaknesses. Because ayecasher is about improving your lifestyle and achieving your potential through self-knowledge and understanding this page is imperative reading and we make no excuses if what you read sometimes hurts. Life offers so much to each of us but so many allow it to drift by without making the slightest effort to reach our full potential. That is wasteful in the extreme because if we don't all achieve what we are capable of the world remains a less than beautiful place. Allow me to ask a question of you: "We know that the amount of money floating around the world economy is in excess of US$15 Trillion. That is about $3 million for each woman, man and child on the planet. Do you have your share of that cash?" If the answer is no then you are not achieving your potential and have given somebody else your share. Invariably it is the under-achievers you hear complaining about injustice, unfairness, lack of government effort to make the world a better place. Instead they should look inward and think of the words of John F Kennedy when he said: "Ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country." Personally I would amend country to world because if we all go out and attain what we are capable of many of the injustices, unfairness and lack of adequate services would not exist. The world that we share would be a far better place. Most of us start life with equal brain power and equal ability to move on to higher things, somewhere along the road self-belief gets damaged. The damage is subtle and just keeps piling up until self-belief is shattered. It can be an unkind word by a relative or peer, it can be misguided information that is not relevant to the age in which you live. When you are young you are easily impressed and some of the misinformation that is fed to you will take up to forty or fifty years for you to decide to question; especially if it came from a parent or teacher. What you must do is learn to question everything you are told and find where it fits into a model of the world that you wish to live in. This exercise will help form a platform of self knowledge that will lead to independent thinking - you are making your own decisions. When you are capable of doing this you have self-knowledge. It cannot happen until you have a model of the world you wish to live in. Sideline: I didn't start reaching my potential in life until I passed forty years of age. I could never think of a model for the ideal world that I wished to be part of and without that mental picture I had no real target to achieve. Then one day I took an interest in the Universe and the world was put into perspective. I like to look up at the mass of stars that make up the Milky Way on a bright night and picture that this tiny planet is just very small part of that galaxy. Then I have perspective that the world is tiny and anything that should be done to make it better can be done because it isn't very big after all. The only thing stopping me reaching full potential is self-knowledge - what makes me tick and a direction follow. The first step on the road to achievement is being honest with yourself about yourself, or self-knowledge. Each of us can achieve even more than we have achieved to date by constantly examining our actions and beliefs. The world we live in changes constantly and many people are so inflexible in the way that they think that they fail to change with the environment. These people get left behind in every aspect of life. I know people in their eighties that are young, flexible and enjoying a successful life. I also know people in their twenties that are so inflexible that they are almost brain dead. In fact they probably are dead and are just waiting for somebody to come along and bury them. Self knowledge will teach you what you are doing that is holding you back – when you find negativity you must work to change your attitude because negativity is a disease that blocks your progress in life. When Christ expounded the theory of forgiveness he was speaking about a model for life. If you cannot forgive you become bitter; bitterness breeds negativity and negativity is the language of failure. Self-knowledge is the key to high achievement.
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