Knowing Oneself Deeply Improves Happiness in Life

In the act of giving, continually explore the unknown self, continually discover new aspects of the self, and persevere to the last moment of life. For this goal a person is bound to meet many difficulties. But the greater the difficulty, the more you will discover that remarkable self. So keep overcoming difficulties, and give your life. I believe that, compared with the difficulties, the joy gained is greater.

— Dr. Shigeaki Hinohara, Living: How I Lived to 105

You should know that such a person has planted good roots not under one, two, three, four, or five Buddhas, but has already planted good roots under measureless millions of Buddhas.

— Diamond Sutra

Of all the people a person can explore in a lifetime, the one who matters most is himself. Only when we know ourselves clearly can we know what kind of person we want to be, what we want to do, and what kind of life we want, while living in this world.

Though psychology has developed all kinds of scales to help us know ourselves, it is still hard to know our truest self from their results. A chief reason is that the scales themselves are not necessarily scientific.

For example, an adolescent who answers a personality-disorder scale may score near full marks on paranoid, depressive, antisocial, and borderline personality disorder. But when those same children pass adolescence and take the same scale again, their scores drop markedly.

Most seniors in high school may have some degree of anxiety and depression, but this does not prove they have anxiety disorders or depression; they are simply under too much external pressure. After graduation, their anxiety and depression disappear. We cannot conclude they have a problem just because certain items score high at this stage. People bereaved or recently heartbroken show similar results on related scales.

Likewise, after midlife, when we take personality-disorder tests, certain items may score higher. Traits tied to reduced social contact—schizotypal and schizoid, for example—are generally more marked in middle-aged and elderly people than in the young, because as people age, even normal people reduce social interaction and unnecessary expenditure.

Personality is composed of several traits; each individual's personality consists of a few core traits, several major traits, and many minor traits that interact to bring the person to a basic balance. A typical schizotypal person may also have some borderline and depressive traits; these can neutralize schizotypality's excessive detachment from reality, giving the person the ability to empathize with others and to compromise with the real world.

Personality is built from five factors: (1) openness; (2) conscientiousness; (3) extraversion; (4) agreeableness; and (5) neuroticism. Each factor contains a series of more specific traits; for instance, extraversion includes positive emotion, confidence and decisiveness, and energy. So a person whose basic state is optimistic and confident has an extraverted personality; one who is highly accommodating has an agreeable personality.

Different people have different traits, which further form several recognizable personality patterns. In summary there are twelve: dependent, avoidant, obsessive-compulsive, depressive, paranoid, schizoid, schizotypal, passive-aggressive, narcissistic, histrionic, antisocial, and borderline.

These patterns exist in all of us to some degree, varying by person. Only traits that stand out markedly on certain scales and seriously impair one's own quality of life—making oneself unhappy and making those around one suffer—constitute a personality disorder. Such people usually score very high, even near the maximum.

Scores below 60 are generally just trait tendencies; scores around 15–30 are basically the basic personality features humans need to cope with social life. If a person had no trait tendencies at all, he might not adapt to our specialized division of labor. In modern society people generally earn a living through a specialized profession, unlike the agrarian age when one could be fully self-sufficient, so moderate trait tendencies help one grow into a professional the society needs.

Scoring too low on a trait is not necessarily good. For example, I score 0.2 (out of 100) on both histrionic and dependent personality, which means I am actually at a great disadvantage surviving in this society.

Histrionic personality has its uses; it is like protective coloration. A score near zero means a person cannot feign in society, which is dangerous to survival—someone will always approach with ulterior motives. But the biological instinct to adapt to the environment may make a person without protective coloration very cautious, which compensates for the lack of histrionicity—caution itself prevents many risks. A very low dependent score means strong independence, but also that the person finds it hard to build cooperative relationships and is better suited to work that must be done alone.

Every personality is a survival strategy evolved over humanity's long history. Those genetic 'strategies' that promote survival, the preservation and expansion of resources, and reproduction are favored by natural selection and retained in the human gene pool. Derived and exaggerated forms of these primal strategies appear in symptomatic syndromes (such as anxiety and depressive disorders) and in various personality disorders (such as paranoid and borderline personality disorders).

Every individual is born needing food, protection, and help, needs that last a lifetime. We show craving, drive, and drive-tension toward them, striving for satisfaction. Moreover, individuals not only crave life's necessities but also need 'human resources'—we need attachment relationships, because they bring security and meet our need for survival resources. It is easy to see why the less secure a person is, the more ardently he seeks a partner rather than solitude; yet in seeking a partner he often meets repeated setbacks, because what he needs is a distorted, over-demanding attachment.

Each personality is in fact driven by such basic needs. Some individuals easily obtain survival resources and are strongly independent with little dependence, but inevitably become the object of dependence for others. All individuals exist symbiotically within groups—our seemingly complex interpersonal relations rest on extremely simple biology.

Normal individuals are broadly balanced across personality traits; even with occasional leanings, they are not severe enough to form a personality disorder or produce long-lasting symptomatic syndromes such as anxiety or depression. But some individuals inherit genes and a survival environment that exaggerate certain traits, producing all kinds of symptomatic syndromes and personality disorders.

To overcome our own personality flaws, we must draw abundant wisdom—from reading or from life experience—to become complete. When we are complete, we need not demand so much from the outside. The Diamond Sutra says that an awakening person must plant good roots under many Buddhas and receive their inspiration before he can truly become awakened. Wide reading and a life of rich experience both mature the mind; hence the ancients said, read ten thousand books and travel ten thousand miles.

Only when our minds are mature can we fit into groups and be intimate with our life partners. Humans are social animals; even monks who leave home must deal with others, so the environment is not the key—what matters is our own adaptability. All depression, anxiety, panic, and personality disorders are ultimately problems of adaptability.

Attachment relationships formed before the mind is mature are biased, and those biases make the attachment object uncomfortable. Biological instinct seeks the auspicious and avoids the harmful; if one side in an attachment does not feel the comfort it wants, it flees. A relationship's failure to meet one side's needs may lie in the relationship itself, or in one side's personality disorder—because when one person's needs exceed the normal range, the other can hardly truly meet them. Narcissistic personality disorder patients, for instance, are endless takers; most who approach them cannot bear it and eventually flee.

Through such study we not only understand ourselves more deeply but understand others more deeply. We learn where our weaknesses lie and how better to protect ourselves; we also learn our own biases and correct them through genuine self-reflection. Gradually we reach a basic balance and become a sounder self; conflicts with others in life drop greatly, anxiety, depression, and panic leave us, and our happiness rises.

Life is like being shipwrecked at sea; everyone must rely mainly on self-rescue. Through learning more, through truly valuable self-reflection, and through reflecting on our lives, we can promote growth and remake ourselves. Spiritual growth brings more happiness and reduces much of the physical suffering we bear, because many somatic diseases are indeed caused by emotion.