Have you ever wondered who you really are? What if you could find out?

I want to know myself better—what makes me me, and how to just be that person without constantly second-guessing motives or impacts. Yes of course, enough psychoanalysis might get me answers… but I’m not that rich, and even then it would be through someone else’s lens. So instead, I’m initiating a self-study project, psychoanalyzing myself (no disrespect meant to the psychologists in the room). I’ll lie on my own couch in a therapeutic wild west, take my own notes, and eventually arrive at the desired deliverable: “Here. You. Are—diagrammed, demystified, documented.” Since I can’t find a how-to book that covers everything I want, I’m making it up myself. A structured study of the self.

Self-study isn’t selfish.

Growing up, selfish was the worst thing you could be. It burned like shame over my body. I’m over that. Now I think of it as Self-ish—being about my Self, my soul, my being. Being conscious and intentional with the most important thing I have.

I want to approach this project like an archeologist—or really a soulful paleontologist, because dinosaurs. But archeology focuses on human-made artifacts, and paleontology studies life over time… except technically not humans, so that doesn’t work either. Down a rabbit hole I went: the difference between -ology and -ontology. Turns out paleontology is still an -ology (weird Greek stuff), while ontology is its own word meaning “the study of being.” A pretty good word.

The Selfyontology Project

And then—da da-da dah!—Selfyontology strolled right through the front door without knocking and into my brain. This will be a structured self-study project. A long-term study of my Self’s being, both scholarly and embarrassingly self-absorbed, like one giant selfie.

selfish → Self-ish. soulful paleontology. Ontology. one giant selfie?

Here’s the Plan:

13 months total. For one year, I’ll work through a structured sequence of self-exploration, analysis, and reflection—documenting everything. Each month has a different focus and varied exercises. Then one extra month of re-envisioning the future in light of all my new self-knowledge, also documented. Most of it will show up here unless it’s way too embarrassing. I’ll take feedback along the way and reserve the right to tweak the structure if your ideas make it better.

You can follow along with me by reading Blog updates (make sure you subscribe!), or you can check the latest and greatest version of the Project Schedule to see how things have evolved! Thanks for being here, and make sure you let me know what you think in the comments 💜

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