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Ask HN: How Do I Know My True Self?

37 points by milanspeaks ↗ HN
People say that you should stay true to yourself.

How do I stay true to myself if everyday I am evolving and a different person from yesterday?

Are there any patterns, method, meditation or questionnaire to know this?

31 comments

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lm28469
There isn't any "true self", as you said you constantly update your beliefs and knowledge.

Thinking that there is a "real you" that you haven't attained yet is detrimental, it's and endless quest. On the other hand, if you think you already are the "real you", what does it mean ? That you'll never have to update your values/knowledge/logic ?

That's a deeply personal / philosophical concern.

Read philosophers' works and go with what feels natural to you, virtually anything you'll ever ask yourself has been written about. What you need is a framework, not a questionnaire or a method.

Meditation can be nice but just taking a few hours off without any distraction (phone, music, screens, etc ... ) will give you plenty of time to think about what really matters to you.

You might be interested in Nietzsche and his "Become who you are!", a good intro could be: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-480-hiking-w...

Checkout Seneca and Marcus Aurelius too, very easy and down to earth advices. Nietzsche will probably be harder to get into.

mockingbirdy
I second reading Seneca and Nietzsche.

And I can't recommend https://www.youtube.com/user/academyofideas highly enough. This channel will be really helpful for your journey.

Start e.g. with this playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLAYxecbGotUyqiNRXY_Vr...

I also recommend reading about the Graves model [1] and cognitive biases [2]. Another thing worth reading is the unified theory of psychology [3] and understanding the meaning of life and your belief system as psychological phenomena.

It's also very helpful to get a certain perspective about the relationship between emotions, rational thinking and yourself (no good link for that, unfortunately).

[1]: http://www.artofwellbeing.com/2017/09/05/gravesmodel/

[2]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases

[3]: https://unifiedtheoryofpsychology.wordpress.com/

peacemaker
This is a question I asked myself a couple of years ago and it has led me down a path of intense self-reflection and searching. Unfortunately, it's not something that you can "think" your way to an answer, not entirely anyway.

To save you the pain of my journey (although perhaps the pain is a necessary prerequisite?) I can tell you that what has worked for me is engaging in Mindfulness and having sessions with an expert in Transactional Analysis. Transactional Analysis teaches you to realize you are not just one person all of the time but instead have multiple "Ego States" that you will move through depending on various circumstances. TA has deep scientific grounding and I have found it the only way to explain myself to myself clearly. Understanding TA (with the help of a therapist) can give you some explainations as to why you think, feel and do the things you do.

There is a LOT more to all this but I encourage you to read a couple of books and perhaps reach out to a therapist that specializes in TA for a couple of introductory sessions and see if it works for you.

- Mindfulness: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Mindfulness-practical-guide-finding...

- TA Today: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Today-New-Introduction-Transactiona...

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momentmaker
I'd suggest reading the book The Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahamsa Yogananda.

Don't worry, it's not about yoga in the western (posture) sense. Yoga means union.

It's about realizing your "true self" as a tiny fragment of the greater whole. Like a water drop merging with the vast ocean.

Fun fact:

Steve Jobs instructed everyone at his funeral to receive this book as his final gift...

hhs
That's interesting, I didn't know about that fact.

This reminds me of systems theory, too. That is, how things merge and, sometimes, even produce something totally new - like emergent behavior.

Dudenoso
I might be missing something, but the question itself seems to be false.

I already am whatever I am. Both my masks and my behavior when alone are part of me. If some part of me does not fit me for whatever reason, I work to ditch it. If there is something I don't have and want to have, I work to acquire such trait. Attaching truth values to this seems silly.

What do you mean by staying true to yourself (and the opposite)? How would you spot it?

jolmg
I think people here are thinking too much into this. It just means to not do things that are against your current beliefs. The context is often that you don't because there is social pressure against you. For example, if your boss says something you consider bad and on asking you, you outwardly agree with him for fear of otherwise compromising your job. That's being not true to yourself.

Another example could be family pressuring you to get together with someone you dislike and agreeing to it despite not wanting to.

If your beliefs or wants change, it doesn't mean that whether or not you were true to yourself in the past changes.

mortivore
If you decide to just go along with whatever your family or boss want because you want your family's approval or want to keep your job, then doesn't that mean your true self simply values familial approval and job security more than being right or your dislike of that person?
jolmg
I think that's trying to assign more meaning than what the phrase was originally intended to hold. It's an issue of human language being ambiguous.

In your use, "true self" becomes a meaningless concept because there can never be a "fake self".

In the context of phrases like "stay true to yourself", I think it merely means to not act as a version of yourself that is inconsistent with your own values/beliefs/wants. In other words, to not act like a "fake" version of you.

vibrato
Sunyata: all things are empty of intrinsic existence and nature
munchbunny
"Staying true to yourself" isn't about knowing what or who your "true self" is. It's really about seeing who/what you are now.

Here's an example. You're looking at a job offer. You think you can probably negotiate to get a higher base salary, but you don't. Why not? One answer I've heard in the past was "I believe that if we have to negotiate money, then I'm not joining this startup for the right reasons." There's a kernel of truth there, but I doubt that person really believed this point. This person was more likely averse to the discomfort of negotiation.

Staying true to yourself in this situation means acknowledging (to yourself) that you are showing a conflict avoidance behavior. Once you acknowledge it, you are halfway to deciding to do something about it. But as long as you rationalize it away, you would not know how to stay true to yourself.

Other posters have covered other dimensions of this question and also advice for working on this specific issue, but this is my take on something related to understanding your "true self" that shows up on a daily, hourly basis.

alacer
From non-dual teaching (Francis Lucille), you know it by being it and you are it when happy. In a different aspect, the answer is the same as to the question "how do you know you are aware?".
0_gravitas
I have found that the process of knowing myself has been a proof by exaustion. I am constantly asking myself questions about why I think the way I do and why certain things do or do not effect me. I try my best to challenge my views and viewpoints when and where i can, and i will keep doing so until i get a satisfactory answer. It is a long process and one that will never be truly done, but every time I get a little closer to learning how i work under the hood.
hhs
Good question. I think about the values and principles of the self. For some people, their values and principles shift and their true self, then, changes over space and time.
webmobdev
Judge yourself by your actions, not your thoughts.

When you find a mismatch between the two, evaluate your action and your belief systems and try and figure out why you acted contradictory to how you think you should have acted.

negativez
You're assuming that there is a platonic ideal 'you' that the living person you are should be compared against. Ask yourself if you believe that statement. It doesn't make any sense to me.

If we can generously interpret the underlying desire as: "How can I live in the way that will make me happiest with myself?" then it's not complicated:

- Reflect on what you want for yourself as the person you are right now

- Consider how your recent actions do or do not support those goals

- Do this again next week, forever

sjg007
>How do I stay true to myself if everyday I am evolving and a different person from yesterday?

You take it one day at a time.

MaysonL
You don't have a true self. The belief that you do is an illusion. See The User Illusion: Cutting Consciousness Down to Size by Tor Nørretranders.
mrdependable
I don't know if this is what you would call being true to yourself, but I found a long time ago an insidious habit that I was able to break. It's something that people do constantly day in and day out. They lie to themselves, whether for a positive or negative outcome.

Think of any time you've had to rationalize your own behavior, while in the back of your mind you know what the real answer is. You were lying to yourself.

You might be lying to yourself if you think of yourself as a nice person, but you never hesitate to participate in office gossip, all the while believing it is wrong to do. You're also lying to yourself when you believe you are incapable of doing something, but know in a tiny place in your heart that you're being overly critical of yourself.

To me, stopping those lies is being true to yourself.

shock
"Stay true to yourself"

All that really means is your actions and your thoughts should be congruent. In other words don't do/say something if you believe something else. Some people call this "being authentic".

If you're paying attention, you'll notice that when you're not being authentic you'll get a "funny" feeling – that's conflict: your brain has encountered a situation where you did or said something that didn't match your internal representation of yourself. Your brain will try to resolve this conflict (cognitive dissonance) either by updating your internal representation or by making you act congruently. Yes, I'm oversimplifying this.

I'm not a licensed health professional, all I have are my own experiences and research into understanding them. You're welcome to reach out (email address in profile) if you want.

rblion
The Diamond Sutra, the world's first printed book (868 AD) and it was hidden in a secret cave for centuries. It was brought to the West in 1900.

http://diamond-sutra.com/

sloaken
I believe it is mostly about the light bulb, not the lamp itself.
yesenadam
The books that have shed the most light on this for me are I'd say

Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis

the chapter on Self in Lakoff/Johnson's Philosophy in the Flesh

and The Gospel of Ramana Maharshi.

for 3 totally different angles on what is 'self', true self, real self, etc. They're all amazing books too.

FromHoiPolloi
In addition to what others have said - one way to gain knowledge of oneself is to try to understand your feelings and emotions in certain situations. You can practice this by writing a diary where you list your emotions throughout the day.

Sth along: "I felt ______ when _____ happened." or "I felt_____ in ______ situation".

This can give you a better understanding on what makes you happy/sad/angry - from there you can analyze WHY. We are not machines and emotions play a big part in our lives. This does not mean we have to be governed by emotions, but it's healthy to acknowledge them.