What do I value? What are my needs in a relationship? What do I want out of life? What are my boundaries?

These personal queries often haunt and overwhelm me, as I find myself morphing into what might be deemed “acceptable” to society.

This begs the question: How much of us is shaped by external forces and expectations? Where does our identity begin and end, and how might we draw clearer lines?

Both in therapy and along my own self-healing journey, I’ve learned more about who I am without forcing myself into a neatly labeled box. Sure, I have room to grow in this area, but my progress is a testament to honest self-reflection.

Here are some tips for getting to know yourself better—no matter how old you are.

1. Spend More Time Alone

I’m convinced the only time most of us are fully ourselves is when we’re completely alone. Perhaps that’s a depressing notion, but it has quite a simple fix.

Take yourself on solo dates or schedule some downtime to unwind without friends or loved ones around. Notice how you feel. Are you uncomfortable in your own company, or do you thrive in isolation? How are you compelled to spend your time? What kind of clothing do you wear? What type of music do you listen to? Do you catch yourself dancing or singing in your kitchen while cooking dinner? What are some quirks you pick up that you wouldn’t otherwise express in public?

The more time we spend alone, the better we get to know ourselves, and the more authentically we can show up in social situations and in our relationships. If you spend too much time around others, you might unconsciously pick up behaviors or patterns you don’t even align with. Push through the uneasiness of solitude—there’s often a lesson within that discomfort. 

2. Journal Through Confusion or Hard Feelings

I know, I know…it seems everyone recommends “journaling” nowadays, often without any sort of guidance. But through a ton of trial and error, I’ve discovered the most meaningful and beneficial way to journal for self-discovery.

Often, when faced with a difficult situation, we seek external opinions and advice from friends, family members, and even the internet. I used to scour Reddit for input from random strangers before validating my own feelings. My search history once looked like…

“Is it wrong to be upset by [valid reason to be upset]?”

“Am I crazy for wanting [valid want/need]?”

“How do I handle [very complex situation that requires personal reflection and an individualized approach]?”

In other words, I was outsourcing my own identity. I didn’t let myself have an original thought or human reaction, unless it was first validated by someone else. This disconnect is common in people with OCD, but it can happen to anyone—especially in today’s highly critical world.

Instead of looking to others for answers that only I have, I began to write in my journal. First, I’d start by asking myself how, exactly, I was feeling in that moment, and whether something triggered the reaction I was experiencing. 

Then, I would ask myself how my body interpreted the signal. What narrative was I feeding myself? Was it backed by facts, or was it just an assumption?

Usually, from here, I would find a natural rhythm, almost like a conversation between me and my “higher self.” I’d go back and forth between asking and answering questions, reassuring myself when needed—but not obsessively.

Within days, I began to notice a massive difference in how I responded to external stressors. I found clarity in myself and felt less compelled to rely on someone else’s POV. After all, who’s to say someone knows me better than I know myself? And why would I value advice from random strangers (or even loved ones leading different lives than I am) more than my own?

3. Don’t Limit Yourself

When defining ourselves, many of us feel pressured to fit into a certain box or view our roles as our identities. For example, a mother of three boys might label herself a “boy mom” as if that’s all she is. An aspiring novelist might deem himself a “struggling artist” without factoring in all the other parts of himself.

Not to mention, social media makes it seem like we must fall under certain “aesthetics” or market ourselves as “brands” to find success and community. Don’t feed into this belief. You can be whoever the fuck you want to be, changing your personal style or music taste depending on your mood, shifting in and out of different “roles” as you please.

Acknowledge yourself as the multifaceted, authentic human you are—and never shrink yourself down to fit someone else’s mold.

The post 3 Simple Yet Effective Ways to Get to Know Yourself Better in 2026 appeared first on VICE.

In a short video introduction to Self Reflective, the project’s many shining tributaries composing the inside of a brain are mesmerizing in their swirling light show. The project’s design reflects the functions of the brain, such as a sense of smell in the Olfactory Bulb, to the planning and decision-making capacity within the Frontal Cortex.

To see more from Self Reflection as well as other work from Greg Dunn, visit his website, here.

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The post Beautiful Brain Art Uncovers the Complexity of the Human Mind appeared first on VICE.

At some point, on that first afternoon of freshers’ week, you’ll need to venture into a communal space. It’ll likely — unless mummy and daddy are very well to do and you’ve moved into one of those 400 quid a week student palaces that unscrupulous university chiefs rent space in just to fuck over the student’s who applied for accommodation slightly later than their peers — be a kitchen. Right now it’s a nice, white, clean kitchen, a kitchen overflowing with fresh-out-the-box cookware and cutlery. There’ll be mountains of tea towels and enough oven gloves to deck out the entire Chinese army. There will, crucially, also be other people in there. These are people you are going to have to live with until July. They’ll burn fish fingers at 4am. They’ll bring home Australians from hostels for low quality bouts of shagging at 5am. They’ll be found in the kitchen, alone, with a bottle of basic’s red table wine and a freshly shaven head at 6am. You will learn to tolerate them in a week, and hate them in a fortnight. Seven years on they’ll be a set of people you can use when you write about freshers week to illustrate that you were a fresher once too.

Anyway, having made it into the kitchen, having added to the communal pile of cookware and cutlery, you’ll begin to talk to Morgan and Siobhan, Tom and Lizzie, Polish Mike and Laura. You’ll try and find common ground. You’ll fail but you’ll still hammer away at it. You’ll be made to feel simultaneously older and younger than the rest of them. You’ll switch between inferiority and superiority complexes with gay abandon. This is your life now.

Some freshers doing freshers week things. Pointing at your new friends is a very important part of a successful freshers week.

Somewhere in this life that you’re now inextricably entwined in, you will meet someone who likes dance music. You might think you like dance music — you quite like the new Disclosure, think Julio Bashmore’s ‘alright’ and you downloaded a Ministry of Sound compilation that you thought might sound wicked for pre-drinking sessions on dismal Tuesday nights in November — but this guy or girl, well, they really like dance music and they want you to know all about it. You’ll, oddly, despite yourself, long to be this guy, or girl’s mate. You’ll want to go to underground clubs and Croatian festivals with them. You’ll want to spend Sundays in an after-after-party daze with them, glugging Lucozade and necking pro plus and thinking about the reading you haven’t done. We want you to be able to do that too. We want you to have the freshers week we never had. Here’s how you can.

JUST KEEP NODDING

“Thing about the Trilogy Tapes is, right, is that they just put out fucking great stuff but they don’t go overboard. You heard that Rezzett tape? Fucking crucial.”
“Yeah. It’s good.”
“That Barnt EP was fucking amazing too. Heard that one?”
“Yeah. It’s good.”
“Man, Barnt’s been on a roll hasn’t he? Fucking smashing it. I never thought he could top “Hark” but fuck man, the His Name EP is just fucking pure wizardry. Heard it?'”
“Yeah. It’s good.”

Do that to everything the Cool Dance Guy You Met at the SU says and you’ll be fine. Absorb his or her taste through osmosis and then pass it off as your own. No one will ever see through it. This is the secret no one will tell you: being ‘properly’ into dance music is all about looking like you’re on top of things when, deep down, you’d actually rather be listening to “Cheerleader”.

RESEARCH RESEARCH RESEARCH!

I know you should be balls deep in Roland Barthes but there’s more important things in life than the death of the fucking author. A good degree’s probably a useful thing to have but that’s three years off. Right now you need mates and you need them fast. You need mates who know how to get drugs and how to talk to girls. So put down Beginning Theory ASAP and get deep into Discogs.

Learn the names of a few labels or producers or DJs to name check in any given situation. Skim Wikipedia to make sure you know the difference between deep house, tech-house, and deep-tech. Combine that rudimentary knowledge with the nodding method outlined above and you’ll find yourself watching some terrible DJ next Friday at 1am trying to convince yourself that you’re having the best time ever and that pills really are fucking amazing man and not just a really quick way to feel like you’re going to have an anxiety-induced heart attack on the bus home.

The author clutching a lurid drink during freshers week. He never spoke to any of these people ever again.

GET SOME NEW T-SHIRTS

All you’ll really learn at university is that wearing the right clothes is the most essential part of having a relatively enjoyable life. Seriously, dress right and you’ll make tonnes of friends and go to tonnes of parties and you’ll hate them all and everyone else there too will but you’ll all pretend to get along because you’ve all got an Ostgut Ton tote bag and a crippling fear of being found out as the snivelling little fraud you are.

PLAY THE YOUTUBE GAME WITH CAUTION

It’s a big moment: your new mate, the club king, has invited you back to his place after a session in the pub. He doesn’t live in halls, obviously, so you’re walking down unfamiliar sidestreets late at night, your mouth awash with the increasingly familiar taste of fags and lager. It feels like you’re going back for something…special. This is it. You’re inside. He takes you upstairs. You’re both sat on the bed, so close that you can’t help but touch. It feels electric. You don’t know how to compose yourself and the room starts to spin slightly. You’re flushed and hot. Your skin’s tingling. It’s happening. It’s happening to me, right now, you tell yourself. He leans over, coyly. “Your turn, mate,” he says, smiling at you. You smile back. This is it. It’s happening to me, right now.

Fast forward five minutes and you’re both sat there, white with shame. He coughs and mumbles something about going to the bathroom. He gets up and it’s just you sat there wondering how it all went so quickly. Was it wrong? Did I mess it up? I didn’t you had to do things before you did that and I didn’t know that that did that if you did that to it. You’ve fucked it. You’ve put on a tropical house mix that comes with a photo of a bikini-clad bum. You’ve fucked it.

SPUNK YOUR CASH ON VINYL

Vinyl is really cool, honestly, and not a total waste of space and money, so make sure you blow the entirety of your loan on Basic Channel 12″s that you play on a shitty turntable from Argos through USB speakers. Instant respect.

ABANDON THE SU

Right, obviously don’t fuck off the SU on the first night you get to university, but don’t rely on it as a primary social space. Student union clubnights are universally terrible. They exist in a kind of warphole of irony and perpetuate the idea that students are just children who’ve been let loose in the supermarket. How are you going to look like you’re deep into Drexciya in front of the guy in your Russian Literature seminar when he’s seen you — though he’ll never admit it — down the front of Pop Party or Club Sandwich or Glamourpuss losing your fucking shit to “Barbie Girl” and “I Want You Back”?

Most towns or cities will have at least one semi-decent clubnight running somewhere. Hunt it down. Head down. Have a drink. Cry in the toilets. Text your mum. Dream about home. Tell everyone how great it was the day after and how sick it’s going to be when one of Gang Fatale heads down in early December to play a two hour set.

Great shirt, Josh, looking great.

LEARN HOW TO DJ OR AT LEAST MAKE FRIENDS WITH SOMEONE WHO TALKS ABOUT DJING A LOT BUT DOESN’T SEEM TO ACTUALLY EVER DJ EVER WHICH IS WEIRD GIVEN HOW MUCH HE TALKS ABOUT DJING OUT, STILL THOUGH HE’S GOT VIRTUAL DJ AND YOUR LAPTOP DIED AND YOU’VE ALREADY BLASTED THROUGH THE BULK OF YOUR LOAN SO YOU MIGHT AS WELL BE HIS PAL

DJing is the most overrated thing in the world after sex, skydiving and I dunno, sailing? Unfortunately your new life is pretty much rooted entirely around the fuckers so it makes sense to suck any ill will towards them down like a shot of sambucca from the SU you’re only now going to on those special nights when the whole kitchen’s heading down for a “mad one” — there was a Facebook event for it and everything . Being a DJ’s mate means free entry to clubs, the odd free beer, and the absolute respect of everyone you walk past in the library the day after you made awkward eye contact with them from behind the booth at the new future garage revival night your pal’s just started.

Better still, if you really want to impress the dude who permanently smells like a potent blend of smoking area pot pourri and Dixy Chicken grease and looks like they’ve never taken that 1080p longsleeve off let alone washed it, you’ve got to master DJing. This takes up a lot of time and costs a lot of money so it’s a good thing that you never planned on working properly after you graduated with a 2.2 in Creative Writing from a university that hovers around the 65th best mark.

DON’T WORRY ABOUT IT

Honestly, most of the people you’ll come across in some way or another who are totally, totally into dance music will have poor social skills and probably hate going out anyway. Don’t become one of them. Don’t become me. I did and it’s not working out so great.

Follow Josh on Twitter. He was a fresher seven years ago.

The post Here’s How To Sound Like You Know About Dance Music This Freshers Week appeared first on VICE.