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.

    35/296 (page 23)
    satisfactions. Only so can we become familiar with our own resources. The peculiar significance of self- consciousness can neither be safely disregarded nor treated as our only problem. No one gets very far in his attempt to live happily with himself who does not consider the resources at his com¬ mand and the needs that require satisfaction. A mere knowledge of resources does not guarantee success, but failure to find what one has and how it can best be used makes futile any effort to win happiness. We not only have to learn what we have and what we do not have and what we cannot have, but also, and this is hardest of all, in the end we have to learn to get on with ourselves. What most of us would choose if we could would be to remain as we are and annex the powers and opportunities possessed by others. Rarely would one like to be someone else, but often one covets other people’s resources. Obviously happiness must be sought in another direction. There is no escape from our living on our own possessions. We may increase what has been given us, we may more efficiently use our resources, but we cannot hope for happiness unless we learn to make good use of our own personality, physically, mentally, and socially. We have to learn to live with ourselves. This cannot be a mere act of acquiescence. There has to be some searching to find out the meaning of human nature in general as well as to discover what we as individual specimens of hu¬ man nature represent. This appraisal of human craving [23]