Why We Don’t Understand Ourselves
Introduction
The term “self-insight” has a fairly broad definition, describing not just an understanding of long-standing factors like one’s personality and value system, but also moment-to-moment awareness of relatively temporary factors like our emotional states and train of thought.
Developing a holistic understanding of our own nature over time is akin to writing an instruction manual for ourselves. By organizing, packaging, and periodically reviewing the self-insights we accumulate with age and experience, we can develop tailor-made approaches to nearly every aspect of our lives (including self-love, romantic love, education, career, leisure, etc.)
In the absence of self-insight, various life endeavors are likely to be plagued by wasted effort, self-deception, and existential confusion, all of which contribute to overall life dissatisfaction.
Given the importance of developing self-insight, one might assume that there are hard-and-fast rules that govern the process of understanding ourselves. In fact, the process is much less straightforward than one might imagine.
For starters, there is no firmly established educational or cultural tradition of self-reflection, whether in school or elsewhere.
Surely, the academic subjects of psychology and philosophy could be said to have significant relevance to the topic of self-insight. Nevertheless, in most cases neither of these school subjects is compulsory. Even when students elect to study them, the coursework often emphasizes the history and evolution of each field rather than its application to one’s own experience.
While some religious traditions do place a certain amount of emphasis on personal insight (e.g., meditation), these practices typically focus on core commonalities of the human experience rather than specific insights about oneself.
However, the path to specific self-insight is complicated by more than this lack of cultural and educational “training.” Nor is a lack of willingness to understand oneself a key limiting factor; naturally, the desire to learn any topic is a basic prerequisite for acquiring insights about that topic.
More often than not, individuals want to understand themselves. In fact, they may feel as though they have already attained sufficient self-insight. Unfortunately, several unforeseen barriers often prevent us from first realizing and later refining meaningful insights about ourselves.
This blog post will attempt to identify some of the major barriers to self-insight, as well as ways to confront their influence more directly.
Barrier #1: We are heavily influenced by context
Think, for a moment, about the factors that most influence the way your life looks today: the role you fulfill in society, the relationships you maintain, and the place in which you live.
At first, you may recount stories of the remarkable happenstance that led you to meet your significant other, the diligent studying you did in college that facilitated your career success, or some other personalized anecdote that has substantially shaped the contours of your current life.
If one peels back the layers of these narratives and attempts to account for the major drivers of each, one may begin to notice an initially frightening trend: many of these biographical stories have a backdrop of causal factors totally unrelated to our own effort, decision-making, or reasoning abilities.
To illustrate this principle using a more abstract example, imagine meeting a humanoid extraterrestrial being and being faced with the task of describing yourself in just a few short sentences.
At first, you may default to summarizing unique aspects of your personality, your appearance, your career, or your relationships.
While I am sure such details are captivating and memorable in their own right, one could argue that the alien life form would develop a more helpful and accurate mental image of your life if provided with information that seemingly has nothing to do with you: in what era of human civilization you were born, in what country you were born, what type of role your parents fulfilled in society, etc.
It is these factors, completely outside of our control, that influence the broad contours of our life more than anything else.
That includes questions of whether or not we are likely to die of a preventable illness before the age of 5, whether we can or cannot attain formal education at all, and whether our home is more likely to be a remote shack or a luxurious penthouse.
Maintaining an awareness of these background factors is a tricky task that requires constant effort, and no path to self-insight can start without an accurate accounting of them.
Barrier #2: We compare ourselves to others
Although human beings struggle to contextualize their lives properly in terms of “big picture” matters, other forms of contextualization appear to be as instinctual as they are common. Specifically, human beings incessantly compare themselves to others in terms of words, deeds, and attributes.
For social creatures, such comparisons make perfect sense: it is essential to be aware of others’ perspectives and views in order to navigate society effectively. Without such awareness, it would be impossible for us to build harmonious relationships and find our unique social niche.
From the perspective of self-understanding, significant issues arise when comparisons between ourselves and others inadvertently become the primary lens through which we view ourselves.
The all-too-common habit of social comparison blinds us to a fundamental human principle: in one form or another, each of us is unique. Therefore, it is not only technically impossible but also unfruitful for us to reflect on ourselves using criteria appropriate for another.
To illustrate this principle, consider the situation in which you are studying for a school exam and notice that you are having trouble retaining some of the relevant information. Obviously, you are not the only pupil in your class: some of your classmates are struggling to a similar degree, while others are doing better or worse.
A holistic, productive approach to improving your own academic performance would likely involve informally investigating the factors that shape student success in the classroom.
For example, you might ask: What resources are my more successful classmates using that I am not? How often and for how long are they studying relative to me? Based on my experience with them, how would I assess their overall intellect relative to mine? What can the answers to these and other questions tell me about my own academic performance?
In short, the investigatory approach described above draws on the experiences of others to gain practical self-insight.
That is to say, you can develop a practical idea of what success in a particular realm looks like only by combining general insights about success and failure with specific insights about what success or failure might look like for you.
While tempting, an alternative approach that relies on comparisons between individuals would be far less productive.
The reason is that the fundamental purpose of most comparisons is not to develop some form of understanding, but rather to categorize people bluntly and simplistically along the lines of social desirability or factors tangentially related to it.
In other words, an analysis of success or failure based on social comparisons is a closed, value-laden process: the other students are performing better, so there must be something “wrong with me” or something “right about them.”
The impact of everyday social comparisons is not hard to imagine: in the classroom example, students with relatively higher performance typically receive more positive social attention from peers, educators, and caretakers alike.
As they progress to higher educational institutions, successful students may also receive more educational resources from society (which, in turn, might help them gain more financial resources and social renown).
The short- and long-term consequences of social comparison illustrate why it is natural for us to engage in them. Because of our social nature, no human being with a well-ordered mental state actively tries to create a situation in which they are “left behind” or, at worst, completely cut off from those around them.
That is one reason why marketing tactics often tap into our urge toward social comparison, using implicit conceptions of popularity and desirability to shape an audience member’s view of products and services.
Beyond establishing rankings and hierarchies, social comparisons are also the means by which we establish frameworks for what is “normal” or “expected,” even if those comparisons are made against a fabricated social media persona or a fictional movie character.
The subconscious drive to build, and then align our behavior and attitudes with, such frameworks is why we often mimic the behavior and beliefs of others in our day-to-day lives without realizing it.
The true damage of social comparisons, then, lies in their ability to sabotage our understanding and acceptance of the numerous factors that make us unique. Taken to an extreme, such comparisons can make us question our basic value and our worthiness of love.
In fact, it is our unique attributes that dictate not only the ways in which we are likely to deviate from others but also the ways in which we must deviate from them to achieve inner peace and social harmony.
Barrier #3: We are the only version of ourselves
The logic of self-insight is made fiendishly complicated by a fact that places hard caps on both the things we can know about ourselves and the precision with which we can know them: there is only (and only ever will be) one of us.
In the world of science, the most reliable route to insights about any given thing is to isolate two instances of that thing and subject only one of them to a particular change.
In medicine, this might involve administering a new weight-loss drug to one group of participants while withholding it from the other. At the end of the study, researchers can reasonably conclude that significant differences in body weight between the groups are likely due to the drug.
Unfortunately, the kind of careful intervention and observation that reveals cause and effect is not an option for a life form that can exist only as a single entity.
Certainly, one common form of self-inquiry is asking ourselves exactly why we are the way that we are. Imagine that you are trying to understand why you are too trusting of others.
Was it genetics that endowed you with an overly kind personality, or did an all-too-safe home environment lull you into a false sense of security about the world? Or was it both and, if so, how much did each factor contribute and how did they interact?
These and similar questions are, unfortunately, entirely unanswerable for every one of us.
One consequence of our unitary existence is that, despite our best efforts, we are capable only of making educated guesses about the fundamental logic of our own individual causes and effects.
Such unavoidable self-ignorance forces us to rely on a somewhat blind, cumbersome process of trial and error that undergirds our approach to social relationships, societal endeavors, and personal growth.
Barrier #4: We are constantly changing
Like any form of understanding, self-insight should evolve over time with the incorporation of new information and experience. This is doubly important given the basic reality that, for all intents and purposes, the person we are today is not the person we were yesterday or will be tomorrow.
Of course, certain factors remain the same throughout your life: your name, your parents’ names, your birthplace, and so on. However, even these discrete pieces of information are intricately linked to parallel factors that are neither concrete nor immutable.
For example, your name may be the same as before, but the tone with which people say your name has likely changed over time. Likewise, your parents are the same people as before, but there is a decent chance that in recent years the dynamic of your relationship has flipped in terms of who cares for whom.
These examples illustrate an important point: we and the world in which we live are constantly changing, making our identity a moving target that is maddeningly difficult to zero in on.
To illustrate the magnitude and frequency of these changes, consider your own life experience: the thoughts, feelings, and mental fixations you had during childhood (or even a few hours ago) are likely to be significantly different from those you have now.
Developing lasting self-insight that is not entirely locked to one period of time, then, requires engaging in the difficult task of searching for common threads between the you of today and the you of the past.
Such a task is complicated by the incomplete and inaccurate record we maintain of who we once were, and precisely what it felt like to be us at different points in time.
Self-analysis across time becomes even more challenging when social relationships are thrown into the mix.
Of course, societal expectations change for us as we age and develop. Likewise, the roles we play when interacting with an ever-changing cast of characters shift substantially over time.
With each new interaction or instance of relationship-building, we are forced to process what is expected of us and where we do and do not “fit in.” This moment-to-moment shapeshifting and role-playing necessarily influences how we think and feel about ourselves.
Sometimes, we wear a specific ‘mask’ so long or so effectively that it becomes impossible for us to distinguish the range of thoughts and emotions befitting that character from the authentic thoughts and emotions we have chosen to de-emphasize (and at times outright suppress) in the interest of effective social role-playing.
The result of inevitable personal development and routine social shapeshifting is that our internal states are never fixed, and no form of self-analysis can cleanly isolate them from their enmeshment with the passage of time and the collage of social identities we have formed.
Barrier #5: We have but one, isolated consciousness
Another, more technical matter regarding the nature of human experience makes it difficult to develop self-insight: the organ that creates and gives meaning to our unique human experience is a computational system of perception and interpretation physically sealed off from the world around us.
Of course, the closed system I am referring to is the human central nervous system (and, more specifically, the human brain).
Speaking in purely mechanistic terms, the brain is a complex receiver and processor of sensory information. From an outsider’s perspective, the observable results of its basic functioning are tangible outputs like words and deeds.
But there is also another, more private and enigmatic result of this processing: our unique consciousness, or the basic sensation of what it ‘feels like’ to be us.
To some extent, basic laws of the natural world dictate that there are certain aspects of our individual experience that are common to us all.
For example, all organisms need to take in nutrients from the environment around them. As a result, all conscious beings can relate to the basic feeling of being deprived of nutrients for extended periods (in humans, this takes the form of “hunger” or “thirst,” for example).
Conversely, there is significant observable diversity in human genetics, human society, and other areas that can conceivably influence the content of consciousness.
This sets up a remarkable contrast: despite the seemingly boundless range of possible human consciousness, each human being has access only to the form of consciousness made available to them by the momentary firings of neural networks nestled deep inside their own skulls.
As you may imagine, the atomization of human consciousness into distinct entities erects several barriers to developing self-insight.
For starters, there is no way for human beings to intuitively conceptualize the range of possible human experience and place our own consciousness within such a range. Consequently, we are incapable of establishing useful points of reference for what forms of consciousness have been or could be felt by ourselves and others.
Assume, for a moment, that it would be helpful for each of us to create a ‘stat sheet’ of our own consciousness. Such a ‘consciousness stat sheet’ could delineate certain attributes and assign them specific numerical values, much as video game developers assign “stats” to athletes in sports video games based on their real-world athletic performance.
Such a sheet might include attributes such as confidence, sadness, arousal, anger, and jealousy. Assume that, as is the case in sports video games, it is updated at routine intervals.
By comparing our own sheet with another person’s, we could gain an intuitive sense of what their waking experience feels like relative to ours.
For example, a peer with a lower “anxiety” value might spend less time worrying about the future. They might also plan for life’s various challenges on the assumption that things will eventually “work out.”
It is not hard to imagine how such an accounting of diverse human experiences may be helpful in understanding our own. It might also help us optimize our experience, or align it with that of others around us if we wished.
In reality, we are ‘locked in’ to our own unique form of consciousness. As a result, we automatically assume that our individual form of consciousness is not just the ‘default’ or ‘normal’ version of consciousness, but also the only version of consciousness that could ever be experienced.
Even when we use our full capacity for empathy to imagine others’ perspectives, anchoring to our own consciousness persistently distorts our perception of the quality (“what” they are experiencing) and quantity (“how much” they are experiencing it) of their experience.
Ironically, such self-referential framing leaves human beings with an innate inability to gauge and holistically describe their own unique consciousness; imagining all the ways in which that consciousness could change, for better or worse, proves even harder.
The main consequence of this fundamental limitation is that central aspects of our experience are taken for granted. States of consciousness we inhabit that might seem totally alien to others go unnoticed within the confines of our own heads, much as a fish cannot conceptualize the idea of “water.”
This presents a further challenge for humans seeking self-insight: regardless of whether someone is willing to modify their thoughts, words, and deeds to achieve a more “desirable” form of consciousness, a more fundamental challenge remains: conceptualizing and defining opportunities for such change.
Barrier #6: We have a warped view of our significance
More pragmatically speaking, the brain’s core function is not to give rise to the sensation of what it feels like to be us. Rather, the human brain could also be thought of as the seat of human knowledge and reasoning.
It may be tempting, then, to evaluate human brains (either in isolation or as a category) along the same lines that we would evaluate a computer: memory capacity, processing power, etc.
While helpful in certain contexts, such metaphors fail to account for critical differences between human brains and computers.
For one, computers operate according to the rules of cold, hard logic: specified inputs lead to predictable outputs in an explainable and reproducible way. In contrast, human brains are messier and place far less emphasis on process. Our minds are decidedly results-focused.
Above all else, the result on which human brains fixate most is the following: passing our own genetic information on to the next generation.
Always lurking in the background, the influence of evolutionary drives on the human experience is so pervasive that causal through-lines can be established between them and nearly all common desires, emotions, and values.
Evolutionary drives also shape the range of predictable topics entering and exiting our consciousness from moment to moment. This includes short-term, simple fixations (like those for food and water) as well as long-term, complex ones (like dating and attaining social status).
Unfortunately for us, the thematic consistency of our fixations is not matched by the degree of cognitive precision or complexity with which we can process them.
Rather, natural selection requires only the minimum computation needed to achieve an organism’s major aims; any additional precision or scale is likely to be superfluous in evolution’s eyes.
After all, when traversing the desert, it is not essential to know the exact GPS coordinates of the nearest oasis, but it is critical to know to take a left at the next sand dune (not a right).
Unfortunately, the self-interested, bare-bones way in which humans process reality has negative implications for self-insight: the innate, subconscious desire to pass on our own specific genetic information lends itself to a mental state best described as “perpetual main character syndrome.”
Erroneously processing the world as though we were unique entities with needs worthy of the universe’s special consideration, we seldom treat the perspectives of billions of other individuals as even equally significant to our own.
Given the inherent technical limitations of organic neural networks small enough to fit inside the human skull, one could argue that human brains simply do not have the cognitive capacity needed to thoroughly analyze the broader impact of our words and deeds.
Regardless of whether human brains could produce even more or less “correct answers” regarding the impact of our words and deeds on countless others, it remains noteworthy that we seldom try.
Instead, reflecting an underlying blueprint that may have preceded the advent of humanity, human nature appears to have converged on a tried-and-true approach: come into being, shine a spotlight on yourself for a brief moment in geological time, and then cease to exist.
While somewhat crude, this approach has been “good enough” for countless ancestors in diverse eras and civilizations to forge an unbroken genetic link to the generations that followed.
It is no wonder, then, that the default and instinctual worldview of all human beings is, to a greater or lesser degree, self-focused, self-interested, and fixated on our individual evolutionary goals: “our” food, “our” water, etc.
We do sometimes branch out, devoting mental energy to the welfare of those outside our circle of compassion, or even to abstract topics that ostensibly have no bearing on our own survival.
More often than we would like to admit, however, the contours of our subconscious and conscious worldviews are molded and remolded by the inexhaustible workings of an instinctual, intergenerational main character syndrome.
Barrier #7: We have limited tools of analysis
Setting aside the motivations behind human thought and isolating its fundamental machinery reveals a fresh set of obstacles that hinder the development of self-insight.
Consider, for instance, the basic tool we have for reflecting on the world and ourselves: our momentary train of thought.
Of course, it would be very helpful if our train of thought were a fixed container into which we could systematically load information and sensations before processing them and exporting the results.
In reality, the human mind is more or less a continuous stream of experience that is not only constantly in flux but also largely at the whim of our external and internal states (including those that arise beyond our conscious control).
For an intuitive lesson on this point, close your eyes and attempt to focus your attention on the bodily sensations associated with breathing: the coolness of inhaled air passing through your nostrils, the rise of your abdomen as your diaphragm contracts, etc.
In all likelihood, you will notice that it is difficult to focus on these sensations for more than a few seconds before some thought, some emotion, or some motivation automatically commandeers your consciousness.
Even when we manage to quell our subconscious mind’s attempts to fill or redirect our conscious mind, the technical limitations of the human mind remain evident.
Human short-term memory, which we use to hold information temporarily, can hold and manipulate only a handful of discrete pieces of information at a time.
This limited capacity places a low ceiling on the complexity and nuance with which we can analyze ourselves in relation to the people and things around us.
Furthermore, because of human beings’ innate forgetfulness and tendency to form and re-form self-serving memories, the long-term memory we rely on to access experiences from days or years ago cannot be considered an entirely accurate historian.
As a result, the basic architecture of the human mind leaves us, by default, slaves to the present moment. Moreover, our mind’s technical limitations place invisible constraints on what can be achieved during the brief moments in which we devote ourselves to effortful, goal-directed thought.
Barrier #8: We have limited capacity for self-dialogue
Just as individuals can overcome the influence of evolutionary drives on their consciousness by deliberately acting in a less self-centered manner, there are also methods to circumvent our innate cognitive limitations.
For example, a person could retreat to a quiet room to minimize distractions, or use a notepad to supplement their short-term memory. However, no matter how well we tune the tool that “does the thinking,” a separate set of issues concerns the content of thought itself.
For starters, it would be hard to describe the content of human thought without alluding to the existence of the ‘voice in our head’ that narrates each waking moment. Put simply, this voice could be thought of as the verbal summary of the non-verbal processing that occurs in our brains.
One challenging responsibility of this internal voice is recognizing, verbalizing, and assigning significance to our internal states or emotions. At this step, our thoughts become distorted by blind spots and biases that drive a wedge between our self-assessment and reality.
For example, most of us have come to regret the instances in which we ignored our non-verbal “gut feeling” about a new acquaintance or a new endeavor.
Alternatively, the voice in our head sometimes gives too much credence to the quirks of our internal states and subconscious processing, failing to keep them in check through balanced, targeted self-reflection.
Ultimately, our failure to question our moods and internal states often results in seemingly inescapable patterns of thought that are either too optimistic and self-aggrandizing or too pessimistic and self-effacing.
One factor that contributes to the irrational ‘loops’ of thought that take root in our internal dialogue is the great deal of guesswork involved in generating a coherent internal voice to begin with. More often than not, our minds assign meaning to our internal states by anchoring to context, prior experience, and preconceived notions.
For example, elevations in blood pressure, heart rate, and mental arousal can register as either fear or excitement depending on the external cues available to us (for example, walking alone in a secluded forest at night as opposed to being strapped into a roller coaster).
The inherent quirks of generating an internal narrative apply not only to things we “experience,” like pain and pleasure, but also to the things we “do.” For example, brain imaging suggests that by the time the voice in our head has “decided” to do something, there is already evidence that a decision has been made at a subconscious level.
That is to say, the voice in our head is often playing catch-up with the motivations, emotions, and decision-making of parts of the mind that are both foreign and inaccessible to it, which calls into question our basic conceptions of “control” and “meaning.”
Small wonder, then, that even when we set aside our ego and dare ourselves to take a critical look inside, we leave the process with flawed and incomplete conclusions whose inherent limitations we are often blind to.
Barrier #9: We can only see ourselves from the inside
After learning of the challenges our internal voice faces in processing internal, subjective information, you could be forgiven for concluding that humans likely fare better with external, objective information.
In reality, the human mind overuses a set of often helpful but logically flawed cognitive shortcuts that impede not only our ability to perform basic arithmetic, but also our ability to analyze our words and deeds in a rules-based, rational fashion.
One fundamental limitation on self-reflection concerns our vantage point: none of us can observe ourselves, our words, and our deeds from the outside.
Such a locked-in perspective means that, during moments of self-reflection, we must play the role of both ‘doer’ and ‘evaluator.’
One of the many challenges inherent to this paradigm is the common assumption that other people’s words and deeds are a product of their essential nature or personality, while our own words and deeds deserve a more multifaceted, nuanced appraisal that includes variables like context and state of mind.
This default method of social analysis is not simply a product of self-serving motivations; without complete transparency between ourselves and others, we lack the information about others’ inner experiences that we would need to fairly appraise the impact of our words and deeds on them.
Short of implanting a (yet-to-be-developed) mind-reading chip in the minds of those we interact with, there is no way to fill these crucial knowledge gaps other than frequent, precise, and thorough interpersonal communication.
Of course, such open communication can be difficult to build even with people you have known your whole life, with whom you would expect significant trust and goodwill.
As a result, many of the narratives we form about our social identity and impact during moments of self-analysis are based on flawed assumptions, each supported by limited information and strained logic.
Wellness Takeaways
After reading the litany of obstacles above, you could be forgiven for concluding that achieving meaningful self-insight is a herculean task. Encouragingly, understanding the ways in which credible self-insight is hard to achieve is, in itself, a form of self-insight.
Fortunately, several strategies can help us overcome the negative influence that inherent human traits and the nature of our existence have on self-insight. The remainder of this post introduces them in practical, actionable terms.
1. We are heavily influenced by context
Attempting a fair and accurate accounting of the circumstantial factors that have shaped our lives is a prerequisite for meaningful self-insight, and it serves multiple purposes.
For one, overestimating the degree of influence we have over our lives can make us prideful in times of success, or needlessly self-critical in times of failure.
Furthermore, distinguishing between the circumstantial and individual factors influencing our lives can show us where we do (and do not) have influence, empowering us to act where action is likely to produce results.
2. We compare ourselves to others
Social comparisons are a natural and at times essential component of our social life. When used in moderation, they can help us establish useful frameworks for expected behavior.
Left unchecked, social comparisons can easily become the only lens through which we evaluate ourselves.
At best, the lives and experiences of others can serve as a point of reference when we reflect on our own, but they can never act as a stand-in for honest and compassionate self-appraisal.
Always remember: the day you choose to be yourself is the day that you choose to offer the world something that nobody else can.
3. We are the only version of ourselves
At first glance, the fact that each of us is the only version of ourselves that has ever existed or will exist carries several daunting implications.
Our one-off existence means that none of us is handed a personalized instruction manual on the day of our birth. Furthermore, the complex interplay between our unitary existence and the ever-changing world around us means that our attempts at self-experimentation are cumbersome at best.
Even so, all of us should take solace in the fact that, despite appearances, every one of us is figuring things out as we go along. Accepting the trial-and-error nature of life, then, means habitually searching for practical lessons in each new experience (whether it ends in success or failure).
4. We are constantly changing
The constant changes our identities and consciousness undergo with the passage of time and ever-shifting social contexts can make it difficult to pin down exactly “who” we are.
It may be helpful to imagine our identity as a malleable substance onto which our relationships and experiences leave their marks and impressions. It is essential that we reflect on our experiences across time and relationships, separating these impressions from the substance that lies beneath.
We must pay special attention to the various masks we wear in social settings. If our social life does not provide at least some opportunity to be maskless, emotionally destabilizing cracks can begin to form within our self-image.
5. We have but one, isolated consciousness
The fact that our consciousness is confined to our own minds impedes our understanding of what forms of human experience are possible for ourselves and others.
Such inquiry is not limited to the study of psychology or meaningful conversation with close companions. It also includes consuming media that force us to take on the perspective of a character whose experience differs completely from our own (e.g., novels).
Only once we step outside the confines of our own minds and develop a better sense of what human experience is possible do we begin to visualize and strive for change in our own experience.
6. We have a warped view of our significance
Long-standing evolutionary drives and cognitive limitations make it practically inevitable that all of us overrepresent our own needs and perspectives when forming our worldview.
Each of us must remain alert to the influence of these drives on our day-to-day words and deeds, including the narratives we tell ourselves about the purpose of our actions (sometimes our conduct is more self-serving than it first appears).
However, just as we inherit the capacity for self-interest and self-aggrandizement, we also inherit a capacity for empathy and altruism. Developing selfless habits and ways of thinking in our day-to-day lives, therefore, can be a path to building rich and mutually beneficial relationships with the people around us.
7. We have limited tools of analysis
Given the peculiar nature of the human mind, expecting it to behave as we would expect a computer to is bound to lead to disappointment.
Remember that our experience is merely a stream of consciousness loosely connected to the moments that come before and after; we have limited control over what enters and exits this stream, and even more limited ability to process it thoroughly and precisely.
As a result, it can be helpful to engage not only in regular activities that extend the capabilities of our minds (e.g., reading and writing) but also in activities that facilitate an intuitive understanding of the nature of our minds (e.g., meditation).
8. We have limited capacity for self-dialogue
Although the voice in our head is a pervasive part of human experience, its many limitations can distort our self-perception.
It is important to remember that, regardless of how eloquent or persistent our personal narrators are, each one of them struggles to accurately acknowledge and assign meaning to our internal states and motivations; when we fail to keep our personal narrators in check, we risk falling into various forms of self-deception.
9. We can only see ourselves from the inside
We must never forget that our perspective is inherently limited: we can assess our impact on others only from the single inside vantage point available to us.
As a result, remembering to second-guess our snap judgments and incomplete, self-serving narratives is an essential part of remaining open-minded and compassionate toward both ourselves and others.
Thank you for your time and attention!
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