All I can do is be me, whoever that is

"When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives mean the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares."

-Henri Nouwen

How can we truly know ourselves, let alone someone else?

I do believe everybody has a story to tell, I don't care who you are. How could you not? The real question is if these stories are all of equal value? Unfortunately, there is not enough time to decide that nor is there time to hear them all... and besides, we have ourselves to figure out.

So what does that make a friendship? If we don't know somebody completely then are they really a friend or just a season in our life? A beautiful friendship an everlasting summer, and a breakup a harsh winter? I think it's safe to say that companionship with someone else is a essentially an act of faith. When you meet somebody we jump head first into their story, and they into ours.

Sometimes it takes a relationship with someone else to learn more about yourself and how we can affect others for better or for worse.

We are always learning about the people around us and ourself, and if we never stop learning, than we never stop growing.

To never know oneself is entirely different than being happy with ones self, we can be very happy with the way we feel about ourselves and our decisions now. Do not be mistaken about that.

In a world where we are never finished knowing ourselves, I guess we can never finish knowing someone else, because there is so many different lights for a person to be seen in that we may never see them all.

So to answer the question at large, do we ever really know someone?

Maybe. Maybe not.

Do we need to?

I don't think so.

We don't know absolutely everything about any of the people we know, but that doesn't mean we can't love them for what we do know. Happiness isn't getting what you want, its loving what you have.