Understanding yourself : the mental hygiene of personality / by Ernest R. Groves.

  • Ernest R. Groves
Date:
[1935]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: Understanding yourself : the mental hygiene of personality / by Ernest R. Groves. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    pride or confidence. Such an effort has a legitimate place when we attempt to draw from our inner life energy to meet our responsibilities. The temptation, however, is to make this our only motive as we seek to know ourselves. It is well to know our strength, but it is equally wise to have as clear an eye for our weaknesses. One is surely as discoverable as the other, and probably happiness and suc¬ cess are more often decided by the way one deals with one’s weaknesses than by one’s ability to use to the utmost one’s strength. In any case, the ability to realize liabilities is the supreme test of the honesty and thoroughness of anyone’s effort to know himself. You and I, like every other normal person, wish to make the most of ourselves. To wish is not enough. There is need also of learning how, and this means getting well acquainted with ourselves. Are you willing, for your own happiness, to attempt an honest look at yourself? If so, it is the purpose of this book to help you explore your self and discover its cravings and its capacities. The happiness we all seek comes only as we make the most of our resources, but to discover what we possess in body and mind, in feeling and thinking, requires a self¬ scrutiny that we all find difficult. It would not be so hard to do this if we were willing to put aside vanity and self¬ blame and hold to the fact that only by knowing ourselves as we are can we use our opportunities to the full. Our life problem is similar to that of the farmer. He must know the soil he seeks to cultivate as well as the [ 17]