“There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond and to know one’s self.” – Benjamin Franklin

Know Thyself is one of the Delphic Maxims and was the first of three maxims inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The Delphic Maxims are a set of maxims inscribed on the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. The two maxims that followed “Know Thyself” were  “Nothing to excess” and “Surety brings ruin”.

Knowing oneself requires becoming more self-aware of ones strengths and weakness. As American clergyman Henry Ward Beecher once said “Greatness lies, not in being strong, but in the right using of strength; and strength is not used rightly when it serves only to carry a man above his fellows for his own solitary glory. He is the greatest whose strength carries up the most hearts by the attraction of his own.”

 “To know that one does not know is best; Not to know but to believe that one knows is a disease.” – Lao Tzu

One of the ways to know thyself is to have the humility that you do not know yourself as much as you think. To know yourself requires radical humility and recognizing your ignorance of yourself. Most of us are putting up a front/ a mask; our life is based on living up to other people’s expectations and opinions of us. Getting to the root of who you are, requires understanding yourself, and reflecting on your childhood because that is where you got domesticated like we do to cats and dogs. We got socially and mentally conditioned with rules, fears, obligations, guilt and belief systems.