Self knowledge is the key to happiness.
Most people have no way of answering the question, "What makes you tick?"
If we don't know who we are, how could we know our own best interests?
Most of us mistakenly think that things of the ego will make us happy.
In our society, most people think that winning the lottery and having millions of dollars will make them happy. This idea, of course, is not true and money can't buy you Love which ultimately is what all people want.
If it is accurate that most people do not perceive their own best interests, how can they learn what they are? First, a person would have to understand what they are not. And they are not what you and society tells you they are.
Fear of missing out, FOMO, is a huge problem in our digital age with social media. The fear of deprivation, isolation, not being recognized and acknowledged is the death of the ego. What people think is in their own best interests is ego stroking, but their ego is not real. The ego is an illusion which demands delusional thinking and massaging.
We are not our ego's, and our ego's interests are not our own best interests in spite of what we have been taught, are constantly suggested, and continually strive for.
Once we realize that the ego's desires and preferences are not our own best interests, then we can choose differently, and as we learn, choose again and again and again.
Unitarian Univeralists know this because we covenant together to affirm and promote the free and responsible search for truth and meaning. This search cannot be successful if we don't understand that we don't understand what is in our own best interests.
(This article is based on Lesson 24 in A Course In Miracles.)
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