The fate of a person is a path of trial and error, self-education and other steps. I can do everything, I want everything, but how to understand what choice to make?

1. We take two hours of our time (undivided, personal and calm) and sit down at the table

It is important. Not on the sofa, not on the bench, but at the table. We write down everything that we like to do, that interests us. Let it be even a stream of thoughts. It is important to write EVERYTHING.

Now put the paper aside and go to bed. The next day, they took a sober look, analyzed it, crossed out outright nonsense. Now it's easier - there is a basis and ways of direction.

2. Read, listen, visit

For a week or two, try to read/listen to/attend a few places/events related to your chosen fields. Breathe in the local air, feel the atmosphere.

3. What do you dislike?

Let's go from the opposite and in the same way we decide what we do NOT like to do. For example, come to work with mom / dad / other relatives and understand - yours or not. Did you see? I do not like? Good. There is already something.

4. Internship

Any office/magazine/job of your dreams is always looking for interns/volunteers. EVERYTHING IS SO SIMPLE. Exactly. You just need to dial the phone number of the authority and ask about the conditions of the internship. Trying is not torture. Such an experience is the best way to "sober up" your ideas about future work and make it clear whether it is "it" or not.

5. Travel a lot and often if possible

A closed space, the same circle of friends, communication often leads us to a dead end. There is an explosion in your head, a surge of inspiration, energy. You see how people live far and near, what they do.

6. Hang out with older people

Age is not as important here as life experience is important. Especially the experience of those who are already successful in their field and have achieved something. Ask for advice, be interested.

7. Interest club

There are a lot of organizations for students / youth, not only on interests, but also on a general, so to speak, direction. There you can find like-minded people - one, have a good time - two. Three - often people around us let us know who WE really are.

8. Read a lot

9. Although the ninth, but very important point (!)

Please think with your head. Not moms / dads / families / aunts by mom dad, but their own. YOU live and love what you do. This is your ambition, life.

10. Make contacts

This is now called "networking" (from "network", "network" in translation from English.). Your interested and capable friends now are successful people, entrepreneurs, specialists in the future. Be polite to everyone. Try to help others when possible. Such relationships with people are the building blocks of the future. What you do now - you later.

11. Know how to relax

You can't always search hard for your calling. Thought? Doesn't go? We take a break and just relax.

12. And here's the catch (see point 9) - listen to relatives and friends

13. Test

Take the Career Test. I am not laughing now. Thousands of psychologists and other specialists developed this kind of tests for a reason. Every question and your answer has meaning. Whether to follow the test results or not is your right.

14. Exhale, there is not much left

So, we are trying to get out of our comfort zone and do something that we have not tried before. In a week we come up with such 2-3 lessons maximum and broaden our horizons. Imagine that you are a guinea pig and a doctor at the same time. Watch your reactions to certain objects / activities / activities. Draw your own conclusions.

15. Last and most important

Ready? Be yourself. Seriously. Stop copying anyone if you've done it before. Someone's experience may not suit you, someone's views may differ from yours, and this is normal. Everyone has his own path. It is important to go through it yourself from beginning to end.

Who am i? This question catches by surprise even in adulthood. But a scene from the Harry Potter book immediately pops up in his memory: Hagrid tells the boy that he is a wizard. To which he replies: “I can’t be a wizard. Because I'm just Harry." The path of self-knowledge took a long 7 volumes. And this is in the presence of spells for a magic wand. But we also have magical attributes at our disposal: books, advice from psychologists and trainers. Didn't work the first time? Nothing, the rat did not immediately turn into a vase either.

How to understand who I am

The good news is that all the necessary advice has already been given. The wisdom of self-knowledge was formed back in the time of Archimedes and has only slightly changed over time. The bad news: prescriptions don't help. Why? There are three reasons:

• It is beneficial for people to remain in a childish state of helplessness. They know how to act, but choose the usual comfort and doing nothing.
• A sincere desire to help oneself is not enough. For every piece of good advice, you need a dozen more on how to implement it.
• Many expect miracles with minimal energy. Impatient researchers want to learn the language in one evening and become an advanced yogi after a week of meditation.

Below is a checklist of seven points for working on yourself. A checklist is a list of checks. Passed the test - put a tick, crossed out the item, felt relieved. The list can be corrected or supplemented.

Adopt parents

Blaming parents for their own failures has become a trend. It makes no sense. Firstly, they raised their children as best they could, did not read columns in psychological journals, and sometimes simply survived. Secondly, adult life lasts much longer than childhood, so there is every chance to educate yourself.

But it is not easy to sincerely forgive a person whom you are used to looking up to. It's even harder to accept the fact that you have a lot in common. The staging of reconciliation will only leave a residue in the soul, but will not bring relief.

Forgiveness is a hard journey, hard to start and impossible to finish. But there are a few tricks:

• You can ask for forgiveness in absentia. In life, this is called "getting into someone else's shoes," and in psychology there is a method of two chairs.

How does he work. Take 2 chairs. Sit on one yourself, on the other, sit an imaginary parent. Imagine him in detail: clothes, features of appearance, manner of sitting. Express a claim to an imaginary dad or mom. After that, sit in their place and try to assess the situation in terms of their reality. And so you can transplant for a long time, but do not overdo it. What has accumulated over the years cannot be fixed at once.

• You may not forgive. You just need to learn to live with it. As the heroine of the film answered the question of whether she managed to make peace with her mother: “My mother and I agreed that we refuse to understand each other.”

Take the starting conditions for granted

We did not choose in which country and family we would be born. They did not choose the date of birth and the place in which they grew up. This must be taken for granted. If this is not done, you can live your whole life, tormented by comparisons: “but if I…”, “be with me…”. Such an illusion of choice causes only resistance. By accepting what is, we lay the foundation for accepting ourselves. Then we get one more "adult" right - the right to choose. To choose where to work, not because, once, parents forced me to graduate from a university, but because I so want to. Live your own life the way you see fit.

Accept yourself if you can't fall in love at first sight

Loving yourself is the most controversial advice that has already set the teeth on edge. It causes constant controversy of psychologists and researchers. Some believe that such a verbal appeal is naive. This is achieved by long-term behavioral training. Others prove that it is easy to love yourself and offer themselves as a mentor. In any case, you need to love yourself, otherwise why look for a way to what you don’t love.

We believe that it is much easier to love a slim self than a fat one. Or you can respect yourself as a successful person, but I, a loser, deserve only contempt. In fact, everything is exactly the opposite. Behind the simple phrase “love yourself” lies a bottomless layer of work on yourself. It sounds grandiloquent, but what is, that is - you will have to dig long and deep. No one knows how to do this from beginning to end.

There is not only one advice, there is no single methodology. Someone explores himself through trying to love his own body. Someone is trying to establish social contact, and the usual hugs are already a feat for him. Someone parted with illusions about their own omnipotence. Need to find. Need to try. Get angry, quit and look again. And in this difficult matter, a practicing psychologist and the technique of "small steps" will help.

How it works. Set yourself specific and measurable goals in time, actions or numbers. Then we can observe the result, find a reason to be proud of ourselves and begin to feel the path on the way to ourselves.

Wrong goal setting. Get rich / Lose weight

Correct goal setting. Next month (term) earn 10% more (figure) than last month / Lose two kilograms in a month. But before that, at least weigh yourself.

Result. Review the results after the agreed time. Things have gone - set a new goal. But just as fearless and measurable.

Dose bigotry

We love to go to extremes. For years we neglect physical education, then we come to the gym, we tear the barbell and ligaments. We go with the flow, we are suddenly puzzled by the question of self-knowledge and away we go: tons of literature that is not only impossible to understand, it is impossible to read, seminars and an endless echo of the phrase: “I am a trembling creature or have the right?”.

Do not engage in introspection at work, while relaxing with family or meeting with friends. It is impossible to be turned on all your life, otherwise there will not be enough alcohol to relax. Take some time for introspection, so you can talk with an intelligent person in a relaxed atmosphere.

Distinguish between persistence and stubbornness

Lack of flexibility interferes in life and at work. It is especially significant for leaders. Many of them behave too authoritarianly, because they are afraid of the laxity of subordinates. Others, on the contrary, play democracy and complain that they are not taken seriously. The solution is that at some point you should be persistent, but you need to be able to listen and hear others.

Perseverance is a manifestation of flexibility and receptivity to change in achieving one's own goal. It does not manifest itself to the detriment of one's own principles, but it does not allow one to isolate oneself from others. Finding the answer to the question "Who am I?" is an unfinished process. Man is an open system, constantly changing and unpredictable. It is important to understand what set of beliefs is driving you towards your goal and adjust it on the path of self-discovery.

Match the scale of values ​​and emotions with a simple exercise

Often we consider the value of what is customary to do in society. Or we want to look good in the eyes of others. But inside something always does not fit together, some kind of incompleteness is felt. There is an exercise to clarify the issue.

An exercise. Divide a sheet of paper into 2 parts. On the left, write 10 values ​​in life: on top - the most important, and move downward to the bottom. In the right column, write 10 joyful occasions, also in descending order. Now compare these 2 lists to understand how values ​​or priorities correspond to emotions in specific cases.

Paradoxically, they are often diametrically opposed. So, opposite to playing sports, there is pleasure from the eaten burger. It turns out that significant life events excite the imagination less than simple everyday trifles. This is where the question of disagreement arises between the concepts of “must” and “important”. If they do not match at all, then you are at the very beginning of the path to yourself.

Listen to the strings of the soul, perhaps they have not been ringing for a long time

A person lives in sensations: physical, emotional and mental. How to understand yourself? From time to time sit on the banks of a real or imaginary river and think about your destiny. If the strings of the soul are ringing, it is worth continuing to do your job. If not, you need to work on yourself further.

Life advice from Peter Mamonov (actor, musician, poet): “Ask yourself the question: why do I live? Just so, really ask. If no one felt good today because I lived a day, then I lived it in vain.

Diary or fashion freewriting

Many people know about the benefits of keeping a diary. There is another effective way to understand yourself - freewriting.

Freewriting is a way to identify useful ideas in the general flow of thoughts.

How it works. Take a few sheets of paper, a pen that writes, set a timer for 20 minutes and write whatever comes to mind. Do not stop for a second, write freely and quickly. You can give your intuition an additional tip: write a problem as a topic and write only about it for all the allotted time. You can ask yourself the simplest life questions, immediately answer them without re-reading.

What freewriting gives. Free-form sentences pull out problems, questions, anxieties and their solutions from the subconscious. First, you deal with all the "stale problems": resentment, guilt, anger. In this way, you can find out the relationship with your parents, forgive them. Gradually, the horizon begins to lighten up. Energy, dreams, strength appear. Now you can clarify for yourself the problem of your own destiny, find your favorite hobby or figure out a hidden talent. It is important to do this regularly, preferably every day.

The question “who am I” is the most important question in the life exam. At school they teach sinuses and chemistry, but they don’t teach you to be yourself. To learn this on your own will require courage, strength, honesty with yourself, trust, patience. The ability to live in harmony with oneself and with the outside world will not be the answer to the most important question.

Do you want to know a little truth about yourself? Personally, I wanted to, and tried to dig deeper. In the article "" I mentioned one method, namely the "self-interview". You ask yourself questions, even the most tricky ones, and answer them, without hiding, what you think. Write everything down, and then carefully re-read and ponder.

Ask yourself and get the answer: part one.

This is necessary, first of all, in order to understand the details of life, those questions that have been bothering you for a long time, and you still do not dare to give an answer to them. It makes no sense to lie and keep silent, of course, if someone from the family does not stand above the soul, and your "inner" is in danger of being revealed. I do not want to talk about something abstract, and I want to dedicate this note to my experience.

I want to warn you right away that the article is voluminous, so I had to break it into several parts, which I will post gradually. This is necessary in order to understand the course of my thoughts, and to see from which sides I approach problems.

My prerequisites for self-knowledge.

I noticed that the last couple of years, I increasingly spend thinking about how my future life will turn out. Life immediately puts some people in such conditions when they already know what they will do in the next couple of years, and what problems they will solve. This happens in those cases, for example, when a friend says to you, “Honey, I’m pregnant,” or parents say in the morning: - son, here they came to you from the military registration and enlistment office ...

At first you are at a loss, but then you begin to take the necessary actions, which lead to one result or another - you live when you act. But what if you are already 25, and you have no family, no goals, no vision of what you want? Instead - a bunch of problems and cockroaches in your head? Any attempt to change direction stumbles upon a bunch of "buts", which in fact you invent for yourself, or they are created by life according to your scenario. You can argue with this, but in my opinion it is an obvious thing.

To be honest, I don’t know which of the proposed options is better, because it all depends on the decisions that you come to, pushed by life circumstances. In one case, early fatherhood, or the army, can make you stronger and teach you how to survive, in another, it can kill the “successful person” in you or drag you into the boring routine of life and make you a “survivor”.

It may seem to you that there is nothing unusual here, they say, there is a problem - solve it, if there is no problem - find it. That is, live for yourself and look for your own ways. Some people live like that, and quite successfully. But everything is not so simple, a lot of thoughts, cockroaches - managed to sit in my head, and many of them are not a banal trifle, but serious things that should be sorted out once and for all, or at least placed on the far shelf, before better times, so that they do not loom before our eyes. And after all, you yourself often asked the question, why others can, but you can’t?

How to do it? - first of all, to understand the goals and desires, and stop hiding and lying to yourself. In fact, it is simple, only such confessions are only a small part of the whole path.

My cockroaches are my experience.

My self-interview began with the fact that I tried to create a convenient format for communicating with myself. Who will be your interlocutor, what to call him, what rights to give him? I settled on the name "Second Self" and let it do everything, although one way or another, we can restrain it, subconsciously. However, the name and position do not change the essence. So I just started asking myself questions.

First of all, I asked the question: “Tell me about yourself, who are you and what do you represent?”.

You know, when we get a real interview and they ask a question like that, we start to put together a squeeze of good facts so as not to seem dull and uninteresting people. In a self-interview, everything is different, you don’t have to prove anything to anyone, you can even laugh off that you are Rimbaud, but there’s no point in lying and laughing it off, it’s important to acknowledge the truth, although self-irony is useful in this matter. And so I tried to answer this question - honestly, and it resulted in a rather long monologue.

Who am I and what do I represent?

Looking at my life, I realized that I live according to some chaotic scenario. I did not set myself goals in childhood - to become an astronaut, a poet, a football player. Children and youth are now generally distracted by all sorts of crap, such as TV, computer, Internet. We often do not develop, but are looking for a “more fun” way to kill time. In this sense, these entertainments do not go far from drunkenness and drug addiction, but at least we do not become alcoholics, invalids, corpses. Isn't it better, in a given number of years, to find out that you have done nothing, and objectively you are nothing? At best - the same as everyone else. It's horrible! At the same time, many understand that by this time they managed to accumulate a bunch of problems, headaches, sores. Not a fun picture at all.

Is it possible to be proud of the fact that you work from 18, or at 21 you got behind the wheel of your car, and then got the opportunity, even on credit, to take a “better” car. He received a higher education, paying for it himself. You have life experience, you did not live completely dull all these 7 years, but ... Who are you now, what do you have, and are you satisfied with the situation? You can be self-critical, or vice versa, you can assure yourself that you at least did something. But what today tells you is the reality. I won't go into all the details, but it all came down to me in one "simple" phrase: I'm 25 and not in the best shape.

Many put this date as a certain boundary, after which it is worth taking up your mind, building a serious career, starting a family. Of course, you can continue to suffer garbage, but we understand that without deciding anything now, it will only get worse in the future. And everyone wants to get an answer to the question “What am I doing wrong?”. If you want to know, dig deeper.

Ask yourself and get the answer: part two.

In the first part of the article “Ask yourself and get an answer”, I wrote about what kind of situation a person can face when he starts asking himself questions: “What is my current life?”, “Who am I and what am I?”. My prerequisites for self-interview, and self-knowledge, were precisely in these questions.

You can pull yourself from any side, and look for different reasons for your behavior. Blaming circumstances or life - the villain is trite, but you can accept the well-known truth that: "We ourselves are the masters of our lives." In such a situation, it is rational to ask yourself: What do I want, and what am I doing wrong?

What do I want and what am I doing wrong?

At a time when we are running from one to another, from work to shops, and so on and so forth, we can hardly adequately gather our thoughts and answer, sometimes even the most elementary questions. It would be like asking, about something serious, an athlete who has just run a hundred meters or a long cross.

What do I want? It is even worth asking, what can an ordinary person want? These are: health, success in business, happiness in the family, prosperity, favorite work, and most importantly - free time for all this.

And so I asked myself: How am I going to get it? If now, in contrast to the above, I have vague ideas about my professional activities, I have financial obligations, not better health, chronic fatigue with the same insomnia, and supposedly “lack of time”, which in fact is a consequence of these problems. And what about this?

Take the squirrel out of the wheel...

Many of us, foolishly, mediocrely dispose of nature's given resources. This is expressed in the waste of health when we sit out sleepless nights playing an online game, or poison the body with alcohol and energy drinks. Are there other negative factors?

When, after a certain amount of time, the forces run out, we refuse to accept it. We are not slowing down, and we are not revising our daily routine. We continue to live on credit. Do you know what a life loan is, not to mention a big “financial” one? I know very well.

Instead of living, you actually work for someone, on his plantation. Wouldn't it have been easier just to wait, to get it all gradually? Well, what would a year or two decide? - nothing! Especially when it comes to pseudo values, for example - a car, an expensive mobile phone, a bunch of cool clothes. In my case, it was a car, and I needed it. But was the exchange equal?

The more we have, the more we want. But at the same time, life becomes like: you owe a lot, take a loan, live some more. Then it comes to the extreme point, when there is nowhere to take from, but it is necessary to give. And that's it, we're in a trap that we've made. What to do? Hunchback the rest of your life, suffering, or choose the easy way? For starters - give your "squirrel" freedom.

To decide is to do!

I realized that I don’t have a magic wand, and no one is going to give it to me. If you already have a lot of problems, you must first of all stop finding new ones for yourself. Take care of unraveling the tangle, give up everything superfluous, and take care of yourself seriously. Even if your family and friends don't understand you. Stop breaking into everything.

We can also move by inertia, try to "bury" all the "jambs". But the right way out is only to solve problems, otherwise everything old / buried, one way or another, will get to you. Over time, it will only become stronger and more "seasoned" by time. Is this what we strive for?

In my case, I decided to sort things out and prioritize things. But first you need to understand what you do in general, in life. For this analysis, you need to observe yourself for some time, write down everything that you do. The term, for example, for one week. At the same time, try to understand how you can optimize this or that process, what is superfluous, what is unjustified. In this way, it is possible to calculate the “holes” into which our time and efforts irrevocably flow. It is important to allocate the right time for this, and take yourself seriously.

What should be looked for?

To begin with, it was worth deciding in which directions I wanted to develop, and actually “what” I want to correct in my life. There are several such directions. I took the current stage of life, and weeded out those things that are objectively in perspective, outside of this stage. So my current list is:

Healthy lifestyle
- certainty in professional activity
- closing all critical debt obligations
- cleaning life from unnecessary things, people, information
- hobby for the soul
- time management and its implementation in life

From a practical point of view, all these points are interconnected. Healthy lifestyle - gives a tone, and the ability to run and solve all other issues, closing debts - gives confidence and peace of mind, hobbies - satisfaction with life, time management - allows you to properly and maximize your time. Moreover, when you correct one of them, and this will give strength to further work on yourself.

At the same time, all these directions need to be shaken up and raised from a deplorable state. How? - Only through a specific plan and its precise implementation. This does not mean that you suddenly realized and decided to change your life, this is a tedious job, to draw up specific rules and actions for your loved one.

In practice, for example, this is like giving up sweets, when some individuals, having suffered for a week, say “well, fuck it all” and get addicted to the “drug” of sweets again. At one time, I conducted experiments, and refused sweets completely, withstood three months with success, and then other problems piled up, and I lost control.

But the fact is, I did. And don’t care about all the temptations, about relatives who tried to slip sweets, or cakes were crushed in front of you ... It’s also real with many other things that we want to do for a long time, you just need to know what to do and according to what program, and not spontaneously.

Where to begin?

It’s better to start with something specific… From those things that bother you every day. Some of them can be solved in a day or two, so why not take them on and solve them? In parallel, we begin to build a new self, with specific important things. What is the most important thing on my list? Of course, health. This is where I plan to start. Why this is so and what difficulties I encountered, I will write in the next article.

This article should be read by anyone who wants to slightly lift the curtain on the answers to these questions. This is one of my favorite psychologist authors, he expresses his thoughts very clearly and, moreover, very exciting. And so the article itself:

If you take the whole psychological practice, then the two main problems that you have to work with are building relationships and self-doubt. And even then, difficulties in relationships are, as a rule, a consequence of impaired self-esteem. And so every time everything comes down to teaching a person to take a sober look at himself and the properties of his personality, to reconcile him with himself.

But this is where the most confusion begins - what to consider yourself, what to take as a starting point, when there is such confusion in your head? This is akin to the question of happiness - the answer seems to be obvious, but not so simple if you think seriously.

The complexity of this issue lies in the fact that when looking inside oneself, one finds a continuous mess there. Introverts know their world a little better than extroverts, but they tend to be too confusing. Extroverts seem to be able to look at themselves in a simple way, but they find such confusion inside that they quickly abandon this idea.

As a result, both are forced to perceive themselves as an unknowable given, as a kind of amorphous entity that expresses itself in thoughts, feelings and actions. And they consider the constancy of her reactions to be their character, their individuality, and they are very happy when this uncontrolled individuality causes universal approval, and just as deeply upset when she does not find proper understanding among others.

This is the foundation of self-esteem - how "I" correspond to what is expected of me. Although it would be more accurate to say that this is not self-esteem, but its absence, because if I don’t “assess” myself, then this is not SELF-esteem, right? This is ME estimate...

We are taught to strive for this conformity, which leads to very sad consequences. Instead of looking for a place in life that would correspond to our essence, we are looking for a way to remake our essence to the existing social requirements and opportunities. This is where the internal discord and the indicated confusion begin - very soon a person generally forgets who he is, what he is and what he wants from life.

What I think of myself is not what I feel. What I feel is not what I do. What I do goes against what I want to think of myself...

I am my body

This is the most naive, but quite natural version of self-perception. Every day we see our body in many mirrors, and every time - about a miracle! - it demonstrates resigned submission to our will. They wanted to raise their hand - they raised it. They wanted to make a face - easily. The body most directly responds to the urges of the soul, which creates the illusion of inseparability or even identity with the "I".

An adult person says so - “I am walking”, “I am eating”, “I am breathing”, “I am freezing”. And when the body experiences this or that discomfort, he states - "I feel bad, I suffer." But in fact, it’s not really bad for “Me”, but only for my body ...

A child in the first months of life perceives his body as something foreign, external. He plays with his hands as if they were rattles, and only after a while he notices the difference between his limbs and the objects of the world around him. An adult person can resurrect such experiences in his memory, by analogy with the sensations in a well-traveled leg, when it seems to be there, but is perceived as a stranger.

In fact, it is quite simple to feel separate from your body - you just need to tune in the right way and focus your attention correctly. For example, you can stand under a cold shower and observe that it is the body that freezes, while the “I” can stay away and observe the process. It is possible that it will not work to catch the right mood the first time, but not from the first, then from the second - there is nothing complicated here.

It is very important and interesting to carry out such a separation of yourself from your body, since it allows you to treat bodily discomfort more philosophically in the future and maintain mental balance, even when the body is not quite comfortable. That is, you can suffer from hunger, or you can keep in mind that the body wants to have a snack, and at the same time not suffer at all. The second option is somewhat more constructive, right?

Here we can also recall the instincts that are inherent in the body at the genetic level and in no way obey us. That is, of course, we can resist our instinctive urges, but we still do not have power over them, and this opposition itself does not end well. Instinct is the voice of life itself, and trying to silence it leads to death.

Instincts are not subject to our "I", we can only observe them in an explicit or indirect form. One could say that "I" are my instincts, and this would be a good attempt to get closer to the truth. The foundations of instinctive behavior are laid down in us by nature, and not acquired with education, so they can be trusted - they will not let you down, because they express the needs of what a person is in general.

But still, “I” is not my instincts and “I” is not my body. The physical shell is rather one of the conditions of the task, which, having come into this world, we all solve. The essence of this problem and the key to its solution lies in something else.

I am my mind

The next and most problematic level of misunderstanding is the identification of oneself with one's thoughts, with what is happening on the very surface of consciousness. The same principle of perception works here - "I am what I control." The ability to control the internal dialogue creates the illusion that it is in this that my self, my "I" is expressed. After all, one can only ascribe merits to oneself and be proud of them if they were the result of the expression of my free will, and not of animal instinct or psychological automatism.

In classical psychology, there is the concept of "Ego", which is considered the center of the conscious part of the personality, and beginners in psychological research are easily misled that "I" and Ego are one and the same. But this is very far from the truth. The ego is just an adaptation mechanism, a layer between the external and internal world. Its function is utilitarian, but by a strange coincidence, it is the Ego with all its contradictions that turns out to be at the forefront, which creates the basis for all psychological problems.

Metaphor from life. We know that the ship is run by a captain, and if the ship were to ask where its "I" is, the correct answer would be "I am the captain" (leaving aside romantic ideas about the ship's own soul for now). But then a strange metamorphosis occurs and the ship suddenly begins to believe that it is the helm, because it is the movements of the helm that cause a change in course and thus seem to express the freedom of the ship's will. But has this ship gone mad? Isn't he too proud in this helm-centrism of his?

The same thing happens every time a person identifies with the flow of thoughts in his mind. Thoughts are only ripples on the water, the result of the wind blowing, but not the wind itself. To consider yourself your thoughts, to equate yourself and your Ego is a legalized form of insanity.

In practice, this leads to many everyday problems that cannot be solved without moving to the next level of awareness. This is exactly the very point of application of forces over which practicing psychologists struggle - you need to knock the patient out of his habitual confidence that to be a reasonable person means to be a healthy person.

Psychologists have even come up with a special term such as rationalization, only they usually use it in a narrower sense - for example, to describe this form of psychological defense, when the patient sucks rationality out of his finger rational explanation for his irrational behavior and thus avoids having to acknowledge the true nature of his actions.

That is, here a person commits some kind of recklessness (cheating on his wife, for example), and then, instead of coming to terms with the fact that he really wanted this, that this act reflects his real personality, he comes up with a rational "explanation", which relieves him of responsibility and allows him to continue to be in a happy illusion that he is a respectable husband. He says - "I did it because ..." - and then begins to lie. This is rationalization - self-deception through the rationale for their actions.

In a broader sense, the rational perception of oneself leads to such an internal position - "I" is what I think about myself, "I" is what I am I decided to be - and this is the most utter stupidity that can be.

For example, a person, having read smart articles on some site, is imbued with the logic of the reasoning given there about the relativity of any moral assessments and says to himself - "Fine! From now on, I will consider that there is nothing good or evil in people, people are neutral, they cannot be judged..

And having said this, he considers the deed done: he understood - it means he has changed. But as soon as a close friend slips him a big pig, he finds himself in a suspended and very contradictory state - you can’t consider a friend a bastard, because it was decided that there is no good and evil, but at the same time it’s impossible to forgive him - everything inside is on fire and I want to tear this worst friend apart.

Here is an internal conflict for you - on an intellectual level, a person believes that there is no good and evil, but at the level of his emotions he continues to give out assessments to the right and left with the same categoricalness. And in the same way he continues to judge himself for every mistake and praise for every smallest victory. This creates the ground for self-doubt - real behavior does not correspond to rational ideas about oneself, what kind of confidence can there be in oneself?

The mind is extremely resourceful in this game of its own, and that is why psychologists dislike nerds to the point of toothache. If the patient's intellect is not very sophisticated, then it is relatively easy to bring him to clean water - his logic contains a lot of obvious contradictions, paying attention to which, you can quickly lead a person to the realization that he knows nothing about himself, and force him study yourself from scratch. But the trouble with wise men is that their logic is thinner and deeper, and it is much more difficult to destroy it.

In the same way, there are great difficulties with people who are narrow-minded, but principled - they cannot be caught by logic at all, they are not interested in it, since all their internal rationalizations are built on a blind faith in certain rules and principles. These are dogmatists, under whom it is even more difficult to dig under than under smart people. Well, that's not what we're talking about.

So, "I" is not my mind, not what I think of myself, not what I think is right and wrong, not my principles, not my views, not what I I decided and what he came up with - it's all superficial nonsense, which cannot be satisfied in any way. "I" is something else, which is much deeper.

I am my memory

Actually, memory belongs to the realm of the mind and consciousness, but this version of self-delusion is worth considering separately.

We have just discussed how the rational ideas about oneself are arranged and what problems the identification of oneself with these own opinions, thoughts, assessments and principles leads to. There was only one question left - where are all these thoughts stored? After all, a person does not invent them every time anew?

To do this, a person has a memory - a piggy bank, in which ready-made solutions for typical situations are added. A person remembers the decisions made earlier and knows that the right person is a consistent person. This is how he was taught, and therefore he strives with all his might to adhere to once formed views and is very ashamed when he is convicted of inconsistency.

However, principles and opinions always lag behind the flow of time. Formed yesterday, they are no longer suitable today. Constancy, certainty and predictability of behavior - soothe, make you feel the ground under your feet and create the illusion of self-confidence ... but this illusion crumbles to dust at the first encounter with an unpredictable and changeable reality.

To have character and to be constant in one's views is considered a virtue deserving of the deepest respect. And the lack of a clear life position and flexibility in views is considered humiliating opportunism.

Having character is good, not having it is bad. “I” is the constancy of my views and values, “I” is my character, and my character is my personality. Education prescribes such a subprogram in every child.

Therefore, it turns out that a person from early childhood begins to nurture, groom and cherish his character. From all the variety of available features, properties, attitudes and principles, a unique bouquet of individual characteristics is formed, which are brought together for one single purpose - to earn recognition and respect. Because character is good, and good character is even better.

Good day, dear friends!

Among the abundance of life circumstances, the constant cycle of problems, as well as tasks, we lose ourselves and turn into robots. Do you know the complete lack of understanding of what kind of person you are? What are they capable of? And what do you live for? How to understand who you are is the main question of today's article.

The search for oneself and one's true destiny is the most important task of every sane person. Some manage to immediately get on the right path, while others need half a lifetime to find their place and cell in the universe.

How do we understand the correctness of our choice and development vector? Of course, this internal sense of harmony and peace of mind. But it happens that when we hardly open our eyes in the morning, we clearly and concretely understand that we are living not your life, but someone else's set of dry rules.

You graduated from high school, went to study at a higher educational institution, getting a profession. And then, a series of responsibilities and the words “should”: must find, highly paid and sometimes not loved, must marry or get married, be sure to start a family and become like everyone else.

And just then, a red phrase appears on the forehead: “ I can't find my life! And everything is here!". Familiar, right?

Changes in consciousness

I personally know people who, having given up on the next rules, have chosen road of another traffic. They boldly packed their bags in one hour and bought a one-way ticket, escaping from the annoying moralizing of local omniscient personalities. Having left far from his native places, a person rediscovers the facets of his soul. Whether it's a life alone with nature or a secret bunker in the suburbs, it's all driven by the desire to live independently and the way you want.

Here we again come close to the question, who am I really? Often, deceiving ourselves and keeping silent, we step on the same rake: betray dreams and take the path of least resistance.

Dreams of becoming famous singers, astronauts or artists were interrupted by the real prospects of the city or country in which we happened to be born.

Examples of personal defeats of relatives or parents, instilled already comfort zone, which later became a fortress, leaving which meant betraying the paradigms of ancestors.

Awareness and unpleasant cell sensation, into which we have driven ourselves on our own, begins to put pressure gradually. First, we are not comfortable with people, then with the environment, and then with ourselves. Why so?

The answer is simple, historically, the more in our lives material the happier we should feel.

A ghostly race for wealth, power and obsession desire to possess, burns down our real, not consumer perception. As a result, we, surrounded by iPhones and branded items, sit in the corner of our concrete boxes and dream of real freedom. But do we need such a present and future is the million dollar question!

Skill- a wonderful skill, having mastered which, life is much easier. Any decision you make will be yours alone.

You are free from blaming other people for this or that fate and the result of what happened. Being yourself both a whip and a carrot, you can model a picture of the world, which is ideal for a specific stage of your formation and evolution.

Methods for finding yourself

A huge stumbling block is lack of purpose, as such. Every day he lives out of inertia, out of habit and a certain alignment. Where did you lose yourself in all this?

To more clearly demonstrate the situation, I will give an example. Imagine yourself as the captain of a ship that plows the vastness of the oceans without a compass and clear coordinates.

Three questions arise: “Where to? What for? And for what reason? ". Equivalent to these three questions, many live their days. The reason is banal confusion and and own strength.

Some people collect opinions, others collect idols in order to somehow help their reflection in the mirror to find themselves real. Most of them do not understand what they want, what they strive for, but one hundred percent know what they would not want.

In solving this problem, the following points work fine. Stock up on the desire to pull yourself out of a state of stupor in front of the future and work through the exercises.

On these reflections, I will put an end to it. There is no right advice in this kind of questions, and each of you is able to serve as a healer. Subscribe to update my blog and recommend it to your friends for reading.

In the comments, tell us about whether you managed to find your place in life and understand who you are?

See you on the blog! Bye Bye!