Although you find this to be true about children, most adults still have areas in their lives where their boundary lines aren’t clearly defined. There are still things that make them indecisive. This is primarily because they never had a chance to explore certain situations beforehand.
As situations and circumstances arise through our lives is when most people learn more about themselves. This is also when they possibly draw new boundary distinctions. As you go through more experiences you get more practice and thereby can set or re-set your boundaries.
Naturally this is why people become more matured and defined with age. This is usually attributed to the numerous experiences in dealing with things and exploring ways of handling them.
However, if older people never experience certain situations, they will be equally as ill-prepared in handling them. Their only advantage would be drawing from the experiences of others who have dealt with similar things in the past.
Even though most of us learn to put on a false front, for the most part that is only a façade to convince others as to what we want them to see in us. For the majority the real self is hidden very deep below that façade.
Normally, people only expose their tender under-belly to very intimate friends and loved ones, the reason being is because they dare not let anyone outside their inner circle see their vulnerability. When they don’t truly know what to expect from themselves they most certainly don’t want others to see them in a state of confusion or ignorance.
One of the main reasons we don’t know ourselves is because very few go on a deep soul-searching mission until something affects them, thereby causing them to introspect deeply. This could be a tragedy, a catastrophe, or the loss of someone close. As things drive us deeper inside we learn more about who we truly are.
Even though life is a constant learning situation, we never fully grasp everything. So much is left unexplored when we depart. Because of this one should learn to expect the unexpected so it doesn’t completely devastate you. The more you are humbled by life itself the more you learn to roll with its flow.
You would think that a greater number of younger people would grasp this wisdom earlier and thereby add more peace to their youth, but that is why the statement, “Youth is wasted on the young.”
Apparently there is no urgency to gain wisdom until something forces one to go on a soul-searching mission. Most people seem to need ample inspiration or motivation before they make the decision to cross over into the vast ocean wisdom. Without it there is another very popular axiom of which we are also quite familiar, “There's no fool like an old fool!”
As I sit here today and gaze back over more than a half-century I think of all the things that the nearly 62 year-old version of myself would say to an 18 year-old version of the same person. Since it would be me talking to me perhaps I may be inclined to listening and perhaps believing, but would I actually apply any of the wisdom that my older self would share with the younger me?
For myself, getting to know my inner core has been very trying and in many ways difficult. Unfortunately I was the sort of chap that required the crash into a brick wall before I made the proper adjustments. I had to touch the hot fire before I accepted the fact that fire burns. I had to try my many foolish ideas or inclinations that were not thoroughly planned and failed several times before I did the prudent things.
I burned a few good relationships and friends before I learned to truly appreciate people in general. Today winning has a totally different result than it did several years back. I have learned even to appreciate small things today when I never truly appreciated things at least thrice their value back when I was young.
I’m not quite sure but perhaps there was a version of one's true self, way back in the beginning, but we somehow denied what was true in order to chase an image that was more popular and acceptable by society. We denied who we truly were in order to become what we thought would be more acceptable by others.
Perhaps in truth you don’t become someone new, but more like becoming who you truly were all along. Like a century-old oak true, even though it grows many more layers over the years the initial core remains the same, simply covered now by multiple layers.
Our initial core is still there, but it is likewise masked by the many layers we placed over it through the years. In order to find your core self you don’t need anything new, certainly not any more experiences, you only need to drop all the false pretenses you have been forcing the true self to accept as real. Drop them all and tell yourself that it is okay to be you. After all, that is how you were born into this world.
Find your core self. And if you don’t like what you find, change it to one that you can live comfortably with through the remainder of the time you are here in this corporeal body. Older people would tell you that truth, but you have to find a way to convince yourself to recognize, acknowledge, and accept wisdom.
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