Knowing yourself means noticing your effect on other people too, not just your own feelings.
STILLNESS
WHAT THIS MEANS
Self-knowledge gets treated as an inward job, all feelings and motives. Half of it is outward, since you are also something that happens to other people, and that half is invisible from where you stand. You can be clear about your own intentions and still have no idea what it is like on the other side of you.
Watch what happens in a room when you arrive and when you speak. Does it get quieter or louder, easier or more careful. If you can stand it, ask one honest person what you are like when you are stressed.
A QUESTION TO SIT WITH
What effect do you have on a room without meaning to?
MORE IN SOLITUDE & SELF-KNOWLEDGE
- You stayed in, then saw the posts from the party. Ask honestly: do you wish you’d gone, or just wish you’d been asked?
- Some of the people you admire most are good at being alone. Notice how they don’t need to fill every silence.
- What you do in the hour after a bad grade, door shut, nobody watching, is a better report card on you.
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.