“To thine own self be true,” says Polonius in Hamlet. Inspired by the motto inscribed on the frontispiece of the Temple of Delphi. Socrates was known to quote it, but his student Plato employed the maxim ‘Know Thyself’ in six of his main teachings.

There is an exclamation point, that means it was delivered as a command. It’s with this in mind that Socrates said that the “unexamined life is not worth living.”

I took that to heart when I was growing up in the twelve step meetings I went to from 13 through my late twenties. I struggled with it, to try to understand what it meant and how to achieve it.

There are three Things extremely hard, Steel, a Diamond, and to know one’s self.

Poor Richard’s Almanack 1750 BENJAMIN FRANKLIN

You can’t analyze yourself without some reflection. Just like you can’t see your face without a mirror. Self-reflection to discover what you are thinking must be done at some level outside of yourself. Writing is the first tool, it can solve most of our problems with self-reflection.

Like a hammer with a nail, this one tool can connect a lot of the world a carpenter would need. To plum the depths of ourselves and reach deep understanding of the nature of being human. Understanding what we share enables us to see what makes us unique. The sum of those two things is who we are as a human and as ourselves. Anything in addition to that must a Higher Power greater than us.

There are a multitude of ways to study humans: psychology and sociology, medicine, our environment; little teaching found in schools leads to deep self-understanding. That’s usually something we do after school. Usually later in life after we realize that the way the world looks at life works most of the time, but increasingly the more sensitive of us are seeing how the human condition inevitably leads to suffering, and the dream of escape by any means.

Those with advantages use those advantages over others and take resources in a world where resources are scarce. Knowledge is the one resource that can only increase the more you give it away. Love does that too. Through our children we can see those two things married in a perfect way.