The Journey to Self Knowledge

I am someone
Who has seen
Good times and bad,
Times money flowed in,
Times when it flowed out,
Times I had friends
Times when I had not,
Times life was full of promise,
And times of little hope.
I tried on the idea
That those things
I have been through,
The experiences of my past,
Were who I am.
It was an idea
That didn’t really work
In my world.
When I was a teen,
Seemingly without experience,
It led me to believe
I was nothing.
When I was older,
It was a straight jacket
Which said I was doomed
To repeat the past.
It gave me no freedom
To experience being me,
Whoever that is.
I began to reason
The past is over and gone,
A mere residue in my mind,
That it is my mind itself
Which dictates who I am.
I toyed and toiled for a while
Contemplating my mind,
Fascinated with its intricacies,
Meditating and pondering
The question of who I am.
I witnessed others
Isolate themselves
On mountain tops
And other mystical places
Attempting to commune with God
In order to discover
Who they really are,
Or their true purpose in life,
But that didn’t appealed to me.
Besides, I never wanted
To live life alone.
My world is a world of people.
I noticed that others
Could often see things about me
I couldn’t see for myself.
It was like I had
A huge blind spot
When it came to me,
And I could easily see
Aspects of others
They couldn’t see
About themselves as well.
I came to the conclusion
Each person I meet
Is mirror reflecting,
Not the person I claim to be,
But who I really am,
The person I am trying
To get to know.