Tell Me Something About Yourself

I know the answer to this or Do I?

I am not the only one who has heard this question all her life. Everyone has.

On the first day of my engineering college, during orientation, a senior asked everyone around the room to introduce themselves one by one. My heart was pounding in my chest, and my breath was getting heavier, as my turn to get up in front of a room filled with 150 other students was getting nearer. Like a broken record, my mind was repeatedly playing the four lines I was going to speak to introduce myself.

What if I fumbled?

What if I pronounced a word wrong?

What if I blanked out?

Why does this feel so hard?

Stop it, it’s just a few lines. All you have to do is to tell your name, where you’re from, and why you have joined engineering. That’s it. It’s not a big deal. Don’t overthink.

But WHY have I joined engineering?

Oh because my parents told me that was the right choice. I didn’t know any better. I did not know yet what I wanted to be so I left it to my parents to decide for me. I would become an artist or a writer if I could, but that won’t pay the bills. That’s what I thought as a 17-year-old at least. So here I was, sitting in the middle of a large auditorium beginning a new chapter of my life.

I heard my name being called. I stood up from my seat and spoke the lines I had been mugging for the last 10 minutes in one go. “I joined engineering because it’s the future. Every aspect of our life today is dictated by technology and I’m excited to become a part of it.” The senior gave me a nod and I sat down with a sigh of relief. Inserting the words ‘future’ and ‘technology’ works well for most of the speeches I guess.

Another time when this question popped up, I was standing on the stage, holding onto the mike tightly with my both hands. All the dance performances I did in the past two years during college fests had given me a newfound confidence, which led me to this moment, competing for the title of ‘Miss Something’. It was the final round. The jury asked, “Tell us something about yourself, and if you could change one rule in the college what would it be?

“My name is blah blah…I want to be this that after graduating….” then I continued with my response to their second question, “If I had to change one rule in college, I’d extend the hostel timings for girls and restrict the timings for boys. If it's because of the guys that girls are asked to not leave the hostel after 7 pm, then perhaps the guys need to remain inside their rooms more than the girls.” I was serious but it made the jury and a lot of people from the crowd chuckle. I won the title anyway.

A few months after this, I went on a date with a guy in my class and he asked me, “Tell me something more about yourself.” I had a huge crush on him for a long time so naturally, I told him the best things about me. I mean come on, I wouldn’t be starting with ‘overthinker’, or ‘occasionally bursts down into tears thinking about her childhood’ right? At least not on the first date.

Fast forward to the last year of engineering, to my very first interview with a startup company. “Tell us something about yourself,” they said. I had prepared rigorously for the interview, searched numerous websites and resources for “popular interview questions”, and so I threw in some words like “Quick learner”, “hard worker”, and “Sincere” which eventually landed me my first job as a Business Development Executive. I was on cloud nine (This company would soon go bankrupt and I would be laid off from my job 3 months after joining, but that’s another story)

A few years later while dealing with a difficult breakup, I met another guy. He was a freelancer looking for a ghostwriter. A few months into our ‘professional partnership’ he asked me out. For our first date, he took me to an ice skating ring and I realized that he was an expert at this when I saw him flying around the arena, while I was struggling to stand straight holding onto the railings for my dear life. I guess he just wanted to flaunt his skills on his first date.  

“I know you’re a dancer, a writer, an artist, and of course, an engineer, so tell me something I don’t know about you,” he asked. I let out a laugh and said, “There are a lot of things that you don’t know but I’ll start by saying that I also write poetry. I don’t think that it’s very good though so I never shared it with anyone….”

“……and I also find anything related to psychology, the cosmos, our existence, or occult pretty interesting. Anything about the deeper stuff in life you know…. You now think I’m a weirdo right.”

He smiled and looked at me before speaking, “No, I think I like that.” (I have been married to this guy for seven years now and have a beautiful daughter with him)

---

Coming back to our topic, “Tell me something about yourself”— a simple yet complex question, which has always forced me to dig deeper within.

Some of my friends will tell you I’m really fun to be around and I crack the funniest jokes in the most serious of situations. Dark humor is my thing. Ask another set of my friends, they’ll tell you I’m always very mature, calm, and composed. Ask my husband, he’ll tell you I am easygoing but likely to have an explosive reaction to the most insignificant things.

Ask my parents, and they’ll tell you I have been a rebel all my life, I make rash decisions, and yet they love me to death. Ask my best friend, she’ll tell you I give the best advice, but I am also weird AF. Some have also assumed that I’d be cold and arrogant before they talked to me.

Funny how everyone knows you a little differently, even when you’re the same person.

But the question is, Who am I?

Am I a mix of opinions, perceptions, and judgments of people I have come across with?

Do I carry fragments of every person’s personality that I have met in my life? It’s true that every person you meet and interact with leaves an impact on you, big or small.

Am I a puzzle put together by thousands of small pieces that come from others?

The truth I discovered

Ask me when I’m into a deep conversation and I’ll tell you, “I’m a seeker.” But I don’t understand or know completely what am I seeking. Is it enlightenment? But how do I know I want it if I haven’t experienced it yet?

In the past few years, since I began my journey into mindfulness, I have tried to know myself deeply, beyond the perception of others and even my own perception of ‘I’.

I have spent hundreds of hours doing meditations, reading books, watching videos, and listening to spiritual leaders and gurus, which all came down to one truth about knowing yourself.

“You are not the body or the mind. You are a divine light inside the universe. And the universe is inside you.”

So what’s stopping me or anyone of you from experiencing yourself as a divine light?

“Ego”, says Adi Shankara in ancient Hindu texts called “Upanishads”.

Ego is defined by the feeling of ‘I’, and all the roles you play in this lifetime. “I’m a mother. I’m a daughter. I’m American. I’m German. I’m happy. I’m successful. I’m a failure. I’m an overthinker. I’m easygoing. I love this food. I like that outfit. I have a difficult childhood. I don’t like my boss and so on. Anything that defines us and anything that we give the power to define us is Ego. It stops us from becoming one with the universe.

I know that this thought takes some time to process so let’s simplify this.

To know yourself, you have to know what makes you, YOU.

Is it your behavior around others? Your emotions? Your achievements? Your goals? Your religion? The god you believe in or don’t believe in? Your nationality? Skin color? Your friends? And family? And everything else?

Perhaps yes, they do make you who you are, at least in the physical reality.

To know yourself deeply, you have to know your Triggers.

Which is what I did.

Ask yourself,

What is it that triggers my emotions? Deep emotions? Those suppressed emotions? Which makes you go, ‘I don’t know where that came from.’

Is it your childhood traumas? Abusive relationships? Heartbreak? Failure? A feeling of not being good enough?

Does someone confronting you make you cry, be defensive, or shout back?

Why do you react the way you do in certain situations?

Understand the root cause of your emotions. Is it because of something that happened in your life? Was there an incident that shook you, broke you, and forced you to be a certain way?

Once you know the answer. You’ll know yourself a little more.

Work on that emotion. Try to heal yourself from the baggage you have been carrying around for too long. Let go of emotions, feelings, and scars that don’t serve you anymore. You are not defined by your past. Not by your future. Your present is all that matters.

If you’re also contemplating the eternal “Who am I” question like me, you have already begun your journey of self-awareness. Knowing yourself is power. The more you know yourself, the more you’ll understand and empathize with others.

This is how humanity will evolve and thrive.

Meditate to know yourself.

I have also found breathing and meditation to be a powerful tool in knowing yourself.

Take 10 minutes out of your day, ideally after waking up or before going to sleep to self-reflect.

Take a few deep breaths and then let your breath flow naturally. Observe your breath. Observe how it’s entering your nasal passage with a cool sensation and leaving it with a warm feeling. It’ll help you clear your mind, so you can blur out the world outside to focus on the world inside you.

Write to Know Yourself

If you’re someone who doesn’t like to sit still or fall asleep during meditation then you should try writing or journaling.

Write down your thoughts, even when you think you’re not a writer and you might discover something new about yourself.

Just look at this post. Just by reading this post, you got to know me a little more, and I also got to know myself a little more.

“Self-awareness is our capacity to stand apart from ourselves and examine our thinking, our motives, our history, our scripts, our actions, and our habits and tendencies.”

— Stephen R. Covey