Although this sounds a bit harsh, take note of the fact that it’s a quote from Socrates and he didn’t mess around or worry about people’s feelings.

With that out of the way, let’s look at what it means.

I take this to mean that it is our responsibility to review our lives (and we should do that on a continual basis). How else can we know where our strong and weak points are? And if we don’t know that, how can we grow and change and become better people.

I think that’s what happens when people stay stagnant and then feel left behind when a loved one or friend grows and leaves that person in their wake.

Relationships need growth of all parties. It’s a dance of sorts. One grows and the other doesn’t. But then that second person tries to catch up. There may be constant leap frogging and that’s actually good since it keeps the excitement alive. Each person wants to grow to be better for their loved one as well as for themselves.

I’ve written before about how you should examine you core beliefs since you’re a different person and it’s a different world from when you first adopted you beliefs.

But you should look at what you want to do, want to learn, want to be and do this as often as you can. Remember the compound effect and how small changes made consistently add up to big changes.

What would it be like to drive a car without a gas gauge and no odometer? You’d just be zooming along without knowing what’s happening in your car. You’d have to do the guessing game to figure out where you can go (how far) before you run out of gas. Or you just go along and when you run out, you’re left thinking “oh well”. Is that how you want to live your life? It’s not how I plan on living mine.