Knowing Self

I have a theory, yea I've had a few over the years, that states that if people were to mind their own lives first and foremost all other things would fall into place.  I think humanity is struggling right now.  We worry about all kinds of things that are going on outside our control and completely neglect to ever really get to know ourselves.  How important is that really, to get to know oneself?  I'm of the mind that it should be of the utmost importance to all people living in this world.  It's not likely going to happen but I am beginning to see a change in the things that people believe.  I once saw myself as a lone wolf out there, as the type of person paying very close attention to my thoughts and caring less about the things going on around me.  Or to stray away from traditional ideas of things that are of a spiritual nature.  To me, all of these things are intertwined and always have been.  I'm a human being just trying to make sense of my being in this world and not of this world.

How terribly hard it is to sit in a quiet room and do nothing!  We are constantly on the go with a hundred things to stimulate us at any given time.  Under conditions like these it is very hard not to let your mind wander away from you and get lost in all of those things around you.  There is this idea that to be still and do nothing is lazy.  Perhaps a bit of laziness is what this world needs to remedy some of it's societal problems.  There are places in this world where people who just sit, and meditate on truly knowing and understanding themselves, are revered.  Not so in the west.  We identify ourselves with all of the things that we do when we don't really know ourselves from Adam.  I am not the accumulation of all the things I've done, although experience certainly is important in life, and I am finding that the more I strip away from self the more I begin to understand.  

Everything I do, whether I am aware of it or not, is leading me to one end.....knowing myself the best I can.  That end will, in fact, come one day, but the journey from here to there is all I'm really concerned with.  I can be on top of the world, but it would do no good if I haven't seen the pits of hell, and this is life.  It goes up and down and it's constantly evolving.  Taking the good with the bad is something I am starting to appreciate more and more the older I get.  Times get rough, but I kind of see those as growth spurts.  The inevitable "this too shall pass" does come, and times do get better, and one can sit with themselves quietly because they know it all elevated their awareness. 

I know that I've gone off in a couple different directions, but as I said before this "knowing thy self" is all encompassing and it's hard to focus on any one thing.  I've come to a realization, I am 3 decades old, damn near half of my life behind me.  That's not a scary thing, it's life. It is what it is.  I think that my hiatus from writing was a moment of growth.  During that time I got to know a little more about myself.  I used to write and ask questions and I thought I was searching for answers when the only real answers I needed were inside me all along.  I just couldn't get quiet enough to hear it, my mind was constantly rolling.  I think during that dry spell I didn't need to write.  I needed to find my answers to those questions.  And now, at the young age of 31, I have answers and I want to share that with people. And here I am, writing again.   Not to say that I'm done growing as a person because we all know that never stops.  But I've come to a place where if I don't share some of what I've got I won't have any more room to grow.  Time to start a new phase in life and see where it takes me.