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Get To Know Who You Are
By Charly Mann
If someone asked you who you are, could you really answer them? Most of us would answer that question with our name, but is that really who we are? Our name is something attached to us by our parents or marriage. If we went further, we might try defining ourselves by want we do for a living, where we live, some information about our family, and perhaps our age. However this really does little to describe the essence of our individuality.
To get a better answer of who you are, one could ask a friend or family member. These people often have a better picture of you than you do, since they will likely describe attributes of your personality. When we think of other people it is their personality and appearance that first comes to mind. In fact, we are so much our personalities to other people that those who know us well can accurately predict how we will react in almost any situation. For example I have known my wife for forty years and often have conversations with her when she is not even around because I know what her response is going to be to almost anything I might say.
But are we really our personality? Although we may not want to admit it, much of our personality comes from our parents, friends, and other people we have known in our lives. As we make new friends, our personality usually changes to adapt to the people we enjoy being around. However we really are not our personality. It is only a mask of habits and mannerisms we use to live our lives on autopilot. Unfortunately, personality prevents us from being ourselves, because it enables us to react unconsciously and predictably.
So how can you see that you are not really your personality? Think about how often you do things that fit your personality yet you felt were not really you. For example, do you sometimes act carelessly, lose your temper, or bend the truth, yet feel internally that this is not your true nature? Many of us go through our lives doing things we do not enjoy because our personality is comfortable with it, yet we feel insecure, unfulfilled, and unhappy. This is because you are not being you, but instead are a prisoner of your personality. As a , we suffer from many personality disorders, including depression and Attention Deficit Disorder, in ever growing numbers.
The real you is within, and is your essence. Some call this your soul, higher self, or spiritual core. It is this essence that makes us unique, and can only be manifested if we focus on connecting to it. This real you remains largely unchanged as you adopt different personalities throughout your life. It is also the only part of you that you really need to nurture and develop. The inner you is your connection to your innate abilities and your intuitive side. It is also the pathway to a spiritual dimension that you will discover through a guiding wisdom in your soul.
Self-knowledge is the result of connecting with your essence. Contemplation and meditation are two of the best paths to begin the transformation from the mask of personality to inner consciousness. As you progress, you will begin to have spiritual experiences. At this point your faith and relationship with God will become the most important part of self-knowledge.
Your essence is the true you and responds to the realities of life quite differently from your personality. Your essence is creative, compassionate, curious, spiritual, and inventive. It responds imaginatively to problems with an awareness and perspective that your personality does not possess. Your personality does not want you to change, while your essence wants you to take initiative for real personal and spiritual growth.
As you gain serenity and self-knowledge by connecting to your essence, you will learn that only your body belongs to this material world, and that your personality is only useful when doing things that should be done unconsciously and automatically like small talk. You will also learn that your body has animal emotions and desires that have no connection to your essence. You are actually spirit and part of an eternal world that belongs to God. Once you attain spiritual self-consciousness through contemplation, prayer, or other forms of self-illumination, a light will come on inside of you that will help you navigate an inexhaustible treasure of learning and revelation.
This material world and your body are illusory, and what you do to survive in this temporary place is not nearly as significant as what you do to prepare for your eternal life. There is nothing permanent about this world, and you are acting like a fool if you are attached to any of its manifestations including age, appearance, and possessions. You are not your body and material things are not going with you into the next world. What you do own and take with you is your essence.
One thing I enjoy doing is thinking of my personality and essence as opposite sides of a switch in my head that I can turn off and on. The personality switch is unfortunately usually on unless I turn it off, and will reset itself if I am not vigilant. I am often amazed at how different my actions are depending which switch is on, and how when my essence switch is on everything I do is so much more productive and enjoyable. I have a few friends that I do this exercise with when we are having conversations. None of us can keep our essence switch on for more than ten or fifteen minutes, but we all agree we enjoy and get much more from one another, when the personality switch is turned off.
Uplifting Visions
a guide to happiness, good health, and success
by Charly Mann
From the age of seven I have been enchanted with the idea of living happily ever after, and have made it a life quest to find that answer. I have spoken to hundreds of people – usually older and wiser than me, and read countless books and articles on the subject. In my website Uplifting Visions I share what I consider the best insights I have learned about achieving happiness in life.
There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
-- Albert Einstein
The great breakthrough in one's life comes when you realize that you can learn anything you need to learn to accomplish any goal you set for yourself. This means there are no limits on what you can be.
-- William Robert Mann
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
-- Galileo Galilei
We're not meant to fit in. We're meant to stand out.
-- Sarah Ban Breathnach
If you love life, life will love you back.
-- Arthur Rubinstein
Life isn't about finding yourself; it's about creating yourself.
-- George Bernard Shaw
Making a living is not the same as making a life.
-- Fred Castrovinci
Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think of you.
-- John Wooden
Ideas that matter; information that inspires
I don't need a friend who changes when I change and who nods when I nod, my shadow does that much better.
-- Plutarch
If you were all alone in the universe with no one to talk to, no one with which to share the beauty of the stars, to laugh with, to touch, what would be your purpose in life? It is other life, it is love, which gives your life meaning. This is harmony. We must discover the joy of each other, the joy of challenge, the joy of growth.
-- Mitsugi Saotome
Judge yourself by your actions and not your intentions.
-- Charly Mann
Discipline is the bridge between goals and accomplishments.
-- Jim Rohn
Call it Nature, Fate, or Fortune; all are names of God.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Remember to work hard. Look to the future with enthusiasm and hope. Accept responsibility, not only asking for your own rights, but also accepting responsibility for yourself, for other people, for nature and for future generations.
-- Madison Mann
Goals are a means to an end, not the ultimate purpose of our lives. They are simply a tool to concentrate our focus and move us in a direction. The only reason we really pursue goals is to cause ourselves to expand and grow. Achieving goals by themselves will never make us happy in the long term; it�s who you become, as you overcome the obstacles necessary to achieve your goals, that can give you the deepest and most long-lasting sense of fulfillment.
-- Anthony Robbins
Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions.
-- Albert Einstein
Ethical existence is the highest manifestation of spirituality.
-- Albert Schweitzer
My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to commune with the spirit of the universe, to be intoxicated with the fumes, call it, of that divine nectar, to bear my head through atmospheres and over heights unknown to my feet, is perennial and constant.
-- Henry David Thoreau
One-half of life is luck; the other half is discipline - and that's the important half, for without discipline you wouldn't know what to do with luck.
-- Carl Zuckmeyer
It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
-- The Dalai Lama
By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is noblest; second, by imitation, which is easiest; and third by experience, which is the bitterest.
-- Confucius
There are two ways to slide easily through life: to believe everything or to doubt everything; both ways save us from thinking.
-- Sophia Lyon Fahs
Adults are obsolete children.
-- Dr. Seuss
You will never be the person you can be if pressure, tension, and discipline are taken out of your life.
-- James Bilkey
Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don't know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of withering, of tarnishing.
-- Anais Nin
True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Love doesn't make the world go 'round; love is what makes the ride worthwhile.
-- Franklin P. Jones
If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take chances.
-- Julia Sorel
Great minds have purposes, others have wishes.
-- Washington Irving
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.
-- Carl Sandberg
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
-- Confucius
The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.
-- Mark Twain
We can't measure out goodness by what we don't do, by what we deny ourselves, or by what we resist, and who we exclude; but we should measure our goodness by what we embrace, what we create, and who we include.
-- from the movie Chocolat
Random information for a more fulfilling life
Evil (ignorance) is like a shadow. It has no real substance of its own. It is simply a lack of light. You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it.
-- Shakti Gawain
The difference between adults and children is that adults don't ask questions.
-- Kathryn Mann
No life ever grows great until it is focused, dedicated, disciplined.
-- Harry Emerson Fosdick
You must live for another if you wish to live for yourself.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Why is there something rather than nothing? We do not know. We will never know. Why? To what purpose? We do not know whether there is a purpose. But if it is true that nothing is born of nothing, the very existence of something - the world, the universe - would seem to imply that there has always been something: that being is eternal, uncreated, perhaps creator, and this is what some people call God.
-- Andre Comte-Sponville
What lies behind us and what lies ahead of us are tiny matters compared to what lives within us.
-- Henry David Thoreau
The shortest way to do many things is to do one thing at a time.
-- Richard Cech
Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not; remember that what you now have was once among the things you only hoped for.
-- Epicurus
A life, if well lived, is long enough.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.
-- Albert Einstein
Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.
-- Carl Sandberg
The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice, the fifth teaching others.
-- Solomon Ibn Gabriol
The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt within the heart.
-- Helen Keller
If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters.
-- Alan K. Simpson
Happy are those who dream dreams and are ready to pay the price to make them come true.
-- Leon J. Suenesl
It's not enough to have lived. We should be determined to live for something. May I suggest that it be creating joy for others, sharing what we have for the betterment of humankind, bringing hope to the lost and love to the lonely.
-- Leo Buscaglia
When it comes to eating right and exercising, there is no "I'll start tomorrow." Tomorrow is disease.
-- V.L. Allineare
Science may have found a cure for most evils; but it has found no remedy for the worst of them all -- the apathy of human beings.
-- Edmund Burke
Experience taught me a few things. One is to listen to your gut, no matter how good something sounds on paper. The second is that you're generally better off sticking with what you know. And the third is that sometimes your best investments are the ones you don't make.
-- Donald Trump
The greatest weakness of most humans is their hesitancy to tell others how much they love them while they're still alive.
-- Olando Battista
Happiness is as a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but which if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.
-- Nathaniel Hawthorne
Overcome your fears and you can reach your potential.
-- Charly Mann
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
-- Immanual Kant
Six essential qualities that are the key to success: Sincerity, personal integrity, humility, courtesy, wisdom, charity.
-- William Menninger
Only Ideas have long and lasting consequences, and ideas come mainly from books not television, movies, or video games.
-- Kathryn Mann
Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever.
-- Mahatma Gandhi
True love is eternal, infinite, and always like itself. It is equal and pure, without violent demonstrations: it is seen with white hairs and is always young in the heart.
-- Honore de Balzac
Life is a marathon, not a sprint.
-- Charly Mann
You have succeeded in life when all you really want is only what you really need.
-- Vernon Howard
It's not how much money you make that's important - it's how much money you keep and how long you keep it.
-- Robert Kiyosaki
Peace cannot be kept by force. It can only be achieved by understanding.
-- Albert Einstein
Where all think alike, no one thinks very much.
-- Walter Lippman
The only way to change your life is to change your mind.
-- Charly Mann
No pessimist ever discovered the secret of the stars or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new doorway to the human spirit.
-- Helen Keller
To say that a man is your Friend, means commonly no more than this, that he is not your enemy. Most contemplate only what would be the accidental and trifling advantages of Friendship, as that the Friend can assist in time of need by his substance, or his influence, or his counsel. Even the utmost goodwill and harmony and practical kindness are not sufficient for Friendship, for Friends do not live in harmony merely, as some say, but in melody.
-- Henry David Thoreau
If you are going through hell, keep going.
-- Winston Churchill
I have six great friends that taught me all I knew; their names are What and Why and When and How and Where and Who.
-- Rudyard Kipling
Very few people really care about freedom, about liberty, about the truth, very few. Very few people have guts, the kind of guts on which a real democracy has to depend. Without people with that sort of guts a free society dies or cannot be born.
-- Doris Lessing "The Golden Notebook"
If you cannot accept fear of failure, you will never be successful.
-- Charly Mann
The good life is inspired by love and guided by knowledge.
-- Buddha
Reduce the complexity of life by eliminating the needless wants of life, and the labors of life reduce themselves.
-- Edwin Way Teale
Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be.
-- Abraham Lincoln
A certain degree of physical harmony and comfort is necessary, but above a certain level it becomes a hindrance instead of a help.
-- Mohandas Gandhi
Nothing is as weak as a relationship that has not been tested under fire.
-- Mark Twain
Too many people spend money they haven't earned, to buy things they don't want, to impress people they don't like.
-- Will Rogers
Wise men speak because they have something to say; Fools because they have to say something.
-- Plato
There are two things to aim at in life: first, to get what you want, and after that to enjoy it. Only the wisest of mankind achieve the second.
-- Logan Pearsall Smith
Money can contribute significantly to happiness if spent wisely.
-- Charly Mann
Universal truths, insights and information for a better life
Money often costs too much.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Passion is the genesis of genius.
-- Anthony Robbins
Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding.
-- Proverbs 17:28
A community that cares about you
Love your enemies; do good to those who hate you; bless those who curse you; pray for those who treat you spitefully. When a man hits you on the cheek, offer him the other cheek too; when a man takes your coat, let him have your shirt as well. Give to everyone who asks you; when a man takes what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others as you would like them to treat you. If you love only those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners love those who love them. Again, if you do good only to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do as much. And if you lend only where you expect to be repaid, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to each other to be repaid in full. But you must love your enemies and do good; and lend without expecting any return; and you will have a rich reward: you will be sons of the Most High, because he himself is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be compassionate as your Father is compassionate.
-- Jesus -Luke 6:27-36
We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success. We often discover what will do, by finding out what will not do; and probably he who never made a mistake never made a discovery.
-- Samuel Smiles
Our prayers should be for blessings in general, for God knows best what is good for us.
-- Socrates
If a problem cannot be solved, then you need to find the best way to manage it.
-- Charly Mann
The greatest wealth is health.
-- Virgil
Modesty forbids what the law does not.
-- Lucius Annaeus Seneca
Wisdom is the supreme part of happiness.
-- Sophocles
You may think that you are the product of events that are largely beyond your control, but you do control the moment. The present is the time you take control of what your future will be.
-- Charly Mann
Believe those who are seeking the truth; doubt those who find it.
-- Andre Gide
An idealist believes the short run doesn't count. A cynic believes the long run doesn't matter. A realist believes that what is done or left undone in the short run determines the long run.
-- Sidney J. Harris
Patience and perseverance have a magical effect before which difficulties disappear and obstacles vanish.
-- John Quincy Adams
Self-pity is our worst enemy.
-- Helen Keller
It is preoccupation with possessions, more than anything else, that prevents us from living freely.
-- Henry David Thoreau
Any so-called material thing that you want is merely a symbol: you want it not for itself, but because it will content your spirit for the moment.
-- Mark Twain
An object in possession seldom retains the same charm that it had in pursuit.
-- Pliny the Younger
Three great forces rule the world: stupidity, fear and greed.
-- Albert Einstein
An intellectual is a person who is always seeking knowledge and has the ability to change his mind when he learns new information.
-- Charly Mann
Materialism is the only form of distraction from true bliss.
-- Doug Horton
To be able to fill leisure intelligently is the last product of civilization, and at present very few people have reached this level.
-- Bertrand Russell