{"id":52086,"date":"2017-06-01T23:08:14","date_gmt":"2017-06-02T06:08:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/?p=52086"},"modified":"2017-06-01T23:08:14","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T06:08:14","slug":"how-to-find-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/2017\/06\/01\/how-to-find-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"How to Find Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

Dear friend,<\/p>\n

I think a lot of us are trying to find ourselves.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I. Know yourself.<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\n Know thyself! – Oracle at Delphi\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The most ancient form of philosophical knowledge was self knowledge.<\/p>\n

To me, it makes sense. We can never fully understand others. But we can seek to understand ourselves.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

One of the ways I’ve been able to find myself is through blogging. I treat every blog post as a chance for me to better understand myself a little better. But like Heraclitus said:<\/p>\n

\n All of life is in flux.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Meaning, we are constantly changing. The person we were a year ago isn’t the same person as we are today. Physically in terms of our atom configuration, we are being renewed, changed, everyday.<\/p>\n

If you looked at yourself as a five year old, is that really you? The only thing that you can link yourself to that five year old kid is though a sense of continuity, and memories via photographs. But in terms of your biology, you are a totally different person today than your five year old self.<\/p>\n

II. Write your own life story<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I’ve recently been digging into my personal history, by interviewing my mom, and also by recollecting my personal memories– writing personal memories and stories via blog posts. I wrote \u00e2\u20ac\u0153SCARS<\/a>.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and \u00e2\u20ac\u0153WHY I CUT MY DAD OUT OF MY LIFE<\/a>“, to understand how I became who I am.<\/p>\n

Of course we will fall into the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153narrative fallacy”– we often make up stories of our lives and make these spurious connections, which often are false. Which means, a lot of our memories are misremembered, or made up.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Regardless, by digging into my personal history, I learned where my sense of hustle came from. The fact that I grew up poor, it forced me to innovate, work hard, and hustle to get what I wanted. I also learned how to be a good man, by being the exact opposite<\/em> of my dad. He was a great anti role model.<\/p>\n

So I recommend you to start you own blog, via WordPress.com or medium.com, and just write public diaries or mini memoirs. It is hard to write a book, but easy to write blog posts. So just write a bunch of blog posts, and just string together your pearls at the end.<\/p>\n

Homework assignment: write a letter to your 12-year old self<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

III. You are not your past<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I like to think we have control over who we are, and we can control our destinies.<\/p>\n

To me, I think we are what we do. We are our actions.<\/p>\n

For example, I don’t want to be trapped in my past history. I want to write my own history.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Therefore, I am what I create.<\/strong> I am a poet, photographer, blogger, Youtuber, and teacher based on my creations. And in terms of my relationships, I am a husband, a son, a nephew, a brother, and a friend to all of humankind.<\/p>\n

What do you create on a daily basis? What is your passion? What do you create or produce?<\/p>\n

Homework assignment: Write down a list of things you’ve created in the last month. Do you associate that with who you are?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h2>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Honestly, I think it is a waste of time trying to find out who you are. Rather, it is a better investment of your time to create the person you want to become.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, if you want to be a photographer, make more photos. Just shoot it.<\/a><\/p>\n

If you want to be a poet, write more poems.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

If you want to be a good parent, spend more time with your kids without looking at your phone.<\/p>\n

If you want to be a blogger, blog and publish more.<\/p>\n

You can be and do anything you want to be; just make and publish new things, daily.<\/p>\n

Be strong,
\nEric<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dear friend, I think a lot of us are trying to find ourselves.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52041,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-posts"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/R0131318.jpg?fit=4928%2C3264&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=52086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52086\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/erickimphotography.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}