On Looking Within: A Brief Exploration (Short Article)

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Why Solitude Can Be a Way to Self-Discovery

The term "looking within" is not meant to be taken literally. It does not mean seeing your internal organs, but rather seeing yourself beyond the sphere of societal interactions and day-to-day regularity. It means seeing yourself as a distinct individual with a degree of depth that is often overlooked.

There are many ways to discover the deeper aspects of yourself, and many of them involve voluntary isolation, or solitude. This is because when you are alone, there are fewer things and beings to distract you from what you are doing. Solitude can provide the concentration and silence necessary for self-reflection. Any activity, like writing, which is solitary, can lead to self-discovery.

Cultivating Self-Awareness

The deeper aspects of yourself are always present within you, regardless of the situation. It is simply that we do not regularly pay enough attention to them, due to the necessity of focusing on other things for our survival and development. Free time is therefore a good means of looking within.

If you ask a random person what they are thinking about, they are likely to not know what to answer. This is because we as humans are always producing and experiencing thoughts. But without enough awareness, we cannot describe them or what they entail.

Dedicate some time to listening to your thoughts, and even record them in whatever form you choose. Your thoughts are the gates to the desired aspects of the self you may be looking for: The ideal self.

You can thus know that you have looked within yourself in a sufficient manner when you are able to properly describe what you’re thinking about when asked so in whatever situation. You can see it as a test of the current capacity of your self-knowledge.

Have someone ask you this exact question from time to time ("What you've been thinking about?"), and you may be able to pass this test, the more you practice focusing and/or recording your thoughts and feelings. It's just like any other test that requires an immediate answer.

Learn to look within yourself naturally, and you'll gain the great benefit of explaining yourself to those who fail to understand you properly. Demonstrating your strengths and weaknesses is better than simply saying you have them in general. Understanding ourselves better can further increase harmony in society when it allows us to better put boundaries and find common ground with others.

As such, looking within is also capable of generating altruistic value.

Feedback by Mr. Nathan Lasher

Self-Discovery doesn’t have to be an internal thing you are trying to figure out through solitude. Yes, time to yourself is important, but if one would like to truly know themself simply do so by going out and experiencing life. How you react to it all will give you a good idea of the type of person you are. It's all about trial and error.

Go out and try something, see in which ways you can be better and go out and try again until you're satisfied with the outcome than go out and try something new. Experience can do stuff which self evaluation will never be able to do alone. Must give your mind the proper demonstration of who you are. You won’t know what type of person you are if all you’ve ever done was stay at home. 

Knowing yourself is not some difficult thing. If you ever want to know who you are, do nothing, pay attention to your actions for one day. Don’t change anything other than noting down the action and reason why you did it. Learn the reason why you do things and you will know the type of person you are.