“Know thyself” is an aphorism that dates to the Ancient Greeks. Psychologist Tasha Eurich joins to talk about why that advice is still relevant in the 21st Century. She’s the author of “Insight: Why We’re Not as Self-Aware as We Think, and How Seeing Ourselves Clearly Helps Us Succeed at Work and Life” (Crown Business).
Tasha Eurich on …
… why it’s hard to be self-aware:
“If we had access to all of our thoughts and emotions and even behaviors, we would be so in our heads that we wouldn’t really be able to live our lives or make decisions, so there is a sort of survival component to that. But in our modern world sometimes it gets ahead of us. Another thing that is a pretty big contributor is sort of our society is becoming more self-absorbed and less self-aware. What that means is it’s making it a heck of a lot easier to see ourselves through rose-colored glasses, which feels great at the time but is not good in the long run. And then, we see everyone posting these selfies and all of this narcissistic Facebook behavior seems to be becoming more of a norm.”
