In order to know yourself deeply, you must experience more of the breadth of human experience. It’s not uncommon for people to assume that they would act in more difficult situations as they have in easy situations. That is almost never the case. You can’t know yourself very well until you see your reaction to great sorrow and great joy, great poverty and great wealth, great pleasure and great pain, great busyness and great leisure, and so on.
There are among us human beings whose experiences have more fully extended across the available breadth. If they have sufficient wisdom, they may be able to apply their experience to your character qualities and help you see yourself beyond the limits of your own experience.
There are vast differences among people, and you’ll need to exercise judgment in identifying the few who possess the wisdom to help you. Though much could be said on this topic, a short list of tips can be helpful:
- Those who have solved the problems at least as difficult as those you face are preferable to those who have not.
- Problems solved are more important than credentials earned.
- Those who have achieved what you seek to achieve are preferable to those who have not.
- Those who can give you solutions are better than those who can merely give you a place to talk about your problem.
- Those who are willing to help you for free tend to be more sincere than those who want something in return.
- Of those who charge money, those whose earnings come from your success are more likely to provide greater value than those who bill by the hour they spend with you.
- Those who give more than they receive are preferable to those who take more than they give.