Know thyself

The unexamined life is not worth living

Hello 👋 and welcome to another issue of this newsletter. If you find this newsletter beneficial in anyway please share.

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Today, we look at self awareness or as Socrates said Know thyself. This is a primer for an essay I intend to write in the coming weeks.

In an attempt to do anything meaningful, it is important to know yourself and know that which you wish to accomplish.

The first step to self-mastery is self awareness. It isn't possible to mastery what you don't know.

If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.

If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.

If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle. -Sun Tzu

Replace battle with endeavour, enemy with goals and read the quote again.

While it is important to know who you are, your behaviour or pattern isn't set in stone.

In an attempt to be better, one can strive to improve behaviours that are detrimental.

Some probing questions to ask yourself :

- What fascinates you?

- What activity makes you feel proud of yourself?

- What makes you curious?

- What activity makes you lose track of time?

- What do you take genuinely take seriously?

- What activity gives you a deep sense of satisfaction?

- What do you find you think most about?

- As a child, what really excited you? Why did it excite you?

- What were you naturally always doing?

- What were you naturally good at?

- What makes you think to yourself "Oh I could do this much better.."

- Who/what makes you envious? Why so?

- Do you love helping your friends?

- Do you love working alone or with people? How exactly?

- Do you love discussing new ideas? What ideas?

- Do you enjoy creating? What?

- Does your stated purpose make sense in the long term?

- Do you love talking about finance?

- Do you have a highly scientific mind?

- Do you love discussing abstract ideas?

- Do you love reading?

There has to be something that activates you. In a meaningful way. The whole idea is to find patterns.

The unexamined life is not worth living

While there always an argument for nature Vs nurture,who we are has an effect on how we manage our finances.

Some are spenders, others are savers. Some investors and others enterprising.

These behaviours are usually on a spectrum.

For example, people who are risk-averse are closer to being savers than investors.

That wraps it up for this week. See you next Sunday.