The words self-acceptance and self-discovery are largely associated with the idea that you have to go on a journey of some kind; a backpacking trip through Europe or a camping trip with many nature hikes are some of the most cliché versions of this. Something that involves leaving your life and the people you know behind and going somewhere alone, for a couple of introspective weeks or months, and then coming back with full knowledge of who you are.
Although I think the journey of self-discovery and self-acceptance is a solitary one, I don't think you have to go somewhere to learn more about yourself, or even not be near people you know. Rather, I think other people are essential in this journey. Be it people who you feel comfortable talking about uncomfortable things, or people who challenge you in any way.
The most solitary component of this journey I would say is when you get to know the "bad" parts of yourself. I put the word bad in quotation marks because I think the definition of this is slightly different for everyone, and in the context of this post, I think your own personal definition should apply for my use of the word. Realizing you are capable of doing things you consider "bad", or that some of your morals don't stand as strong as you would like to believe, and most importantly, as you would like others to believe, is something hard to come to terms with. Life puts you in contact with situations and people who will challenge your morals and most strong standing ideas, and this is what I interpret to be the journey of self-discovery. It is not hiking through a forest or visiting the Eiffel tower alone, it is moral dilemmas and complicated discussions in your day-to-day life.
Going somewhere where you don't know anyone can be a way to speed this journey through. I have written previously about how growing up with the same people inhibits you from trying new things and exploring parts of your personality that developed later in life because you are confined, at least to some extent, to what the people around you think of you.
I would say that self-acceptance is the second part of the journey of self-discovery. It is one thing to realize things about yourself when you are lying in bed alone at night, in that space between waking and sleeping, between consciousness and unconsciousness, where thoughts seem to run beyond our control. But to accept these things in broad daylight is a completely different matter. To talk to someone else about them, another completely different level.
Self-acceptance can be a slippery slope though. Accepting things about yourself and attributing them to your personality can be a way to excuse your bad behavior. To think, "I am a bad person, its just who I am" and then proceeding to do a bad thing isn't self-acceptance, in my view at least. But realizing that you don't really have a problem with lying, and do this more often than you would like to admit is self-acceptance. You don't have to necessarily stop lying because of this realization, so long as you don't use it as an excuse to lie without guilt. Realizing a problem is perceived by many as the first step to solving it though, so this might be a good opportunity to stop lying.
But what do I, a twenty-year-old sophomore in college, know of self-discovery and self-acceptance? This article is a concise and as impersonal as possible reflection on my journey so far, and I imagine it is still in the beginning. It doesn't take a couple of weeks or months of introspection to get to know yourself, but rather, I think it takes a lifetime and still some.
