Know Thyself
Knowing yourself means that you have an understanding of your own morals, thoughts, and behavior. This knowledge of yourself is what allows you to give context to your actions. Knowing yourself means that not only do you know how you react, but also you know why you react in that way. Self-knowledge helps you to know what motivates your actions and allows you to accurately predict how you will react to a certain situation.
Knowing how you will act under certain circumstances allows you to control your behavior. If you know that you have a tendency to act certain manner, particularly one that you don’t like, you can actively work to compensate for it.
Knowing yourself is also a key part to knowing others. Understanding “what makes you tick” gives you insight into other people. If you don’t first understand yourself, then you will never be able to understand others. “Putting yourself in someone else’s shoes”-as cliché as it is- is a good way to do both. If you were able to figure out how you would react to someone else’s circumstances, by comparing and contrasting their actions with how you would act, you can learn about that person. You can try to understand their motivation, their morals, and their point of view. Threw trying to understand someone else and their actions you can gain insight into yourself and your future actions.
By knowing your strengths and weaknesses you are able to know in what areas you will excel and in which you will struggle. With this knowledge you can better compensate for your weaknesses and prepare yourself for the future.
My worst quality would probably be an overall lack of determination. It’s has been a longtime since I ever felt “driven” to do anything. I have resolved my self to coast along, putting in minimal effort. Around fourth grade I discovered that I could put in about 20% effort (not doing homework, doing weeklong projects in an hour, not studying for test, often not even reading the material) and still get 75-80% out put (grades) and I was more than willing to take advantage of the situation. Sense then this negative quality has spread into other aspects of my life. Sophomore year, I quit playing football because it took too much effort. Juror year I didn’t try for honors art because I didn’t feel like putting together a portfolio. This year, even thought the regular deadline for a lot of schools is less than 3 weeks away, I have yet to even finalize my list of schools, never mind getting recommendations or finalizing my essays.
The strange thing is, even thought I am fully aware of the fact that I’m perpetually screwing myself; I don’t really seem to care. I don’t actually know why that is…
I would like to say that I am actively trying to compensate for this behavior or that I have a plain on how to change it, but I’m not, and I don’t. True to my personality, I’m just waiting for it to work itself out.
Well, enough of that…
I think my best quality would have to be my knack for logical thought. I don’t claim to always act logically, only that I’m aware of how irrational I am acting and chose that ignore that fact.
I have seen others demonstrate what I consider to be a lack logical thought. They tend to fail to grasp how complex, or in some cases how simple, things actually are. With things like answering question they tend to get caught up on unrelated tangents and completely avoid the actual question. People who I would consider lacking in logical thought usually get lost in details and fail to grasp the big picture.
Logical thought helps me to put thinks in perspective and have a broader understanding of a concept.
