“Know Thyself”?

A friend of mine, an elementary school teacher, told me, “Our kids are encouraged in every way they can be, for whatever little task they do and whatever little thing they learn. We give them certificates, points, piles of stickers, …all the confidence we can. But it seems like as they grow up and the amount of rewards decrease, so does their learning. Why do you think that is?”

As we discussed, we concluded that maybe what is missing with the boost of confidence is more guidance. We also noticed a trend of this in our society. We are busy giving ourselves ways of boosting our self-esteem and learning assertiveness. However, we hear less about how to get to know who we are, with our personalities, abilities, strengths and weaknesses. How can we know what to have confidence in if we don’t know who we are? Knowledge of oneself must come before confidence in oneself. Otherwise, won’t we just be rooting for anything, or encouraging things that should possibly not be encouraged?

Of course, learning about who we are is a lifetime process, taking into account changes in ourselves and around us. This doesn’t change the fact that the more we know ourselves, the more we will know what to encourage…and the more naturally we will have confidence in the truth God has made each one of us. We won’t need to read assertiveness technique books anymore.