My life is not perfect. My mental health is not the best. However, with my training, education, and openness to life experiences, good or bad, I have constantly tried to be healthy as much as possible. Being the first article I am writing for the Health and Nutrition section for AFF, my main goal is to share some ways to live a better and more fulfilling life that hopefully you could learn from and practice accordingly to have healthier mind sets and better life skills.

And in this premiere article, and just like any course or program in counseling and psychology where knowing oneself is an important key, thus I want to ask you: Do you truly know yourself? Do you know what it is that you want to achieve in life and what are you doing to accomplish that? What makes you laugh, cry, and feel all the rest of the emotions that you can identify? What makes you motivated or feel lazy about to do something? How well do you process information and make the choices that you decide? How do your experiences, education, cultural influences impact you as a person? How well can you think critically or your opinions are the be-all-and-end-all of what reality is? In short, who are you?

There are various ways to help you answer these questions such as answering online questionnaires, talking to a counselor or mental health professional, reading books to know oneself, through your faith, and attending such classes. Regardless of how you are able to know more about yourself, the important thing is for you to go through this process so that you know more what makes you better, what inspires you, what makes your life meaningful, and what goals to pursue. In addition, for us to know, understand, and empathize what other people are going through, we can only do that if we truly know oneself.

If indeed, we can introspect truthfully and meaningfully, then that is a step towards mental health and hopefully a better life. As I believe Socrates stated many centuries ago which still holds true right now, “Know Thyself”.