According to Aristotle, “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” But who nowadays has the time for that? Introspection is so sedentary — and, frankly, boring. We live in an age of velocity, not reflection. 

Yet it’s precisely this lack of self-reflection — and our tendency to substitute reinvention and external change for true self-discovery — that lies at the heart of our modern dissatisfaction. After all, it’s much more fun to scroll through video shorts than to wonder why you want to waste time scrolling in the first place. 

Everyone is on the go: new careers, new locations, new experiences, new “life phases.” If you’re not pivoting, you’re stagnating.

People relocate for “personal growth,” and totally rebrand themselves on LinkedIn, while announcing on Instagram that they’re “leaning into new energy.” Others treat life like a scavenger hunt for fulfillment that never quite fulfills — hopping from city to city, relationship to relationship, hoping that meaning will finally show up. 

But it never does.  Meanwhile, the self we’re trying so hard to discover is right there, ready to be discovered, if only we’d do what it takes. You can change time zones, climates, and cuisines — but if you haven’t yet met yourself, none of it matters.

Everyone remembers George Foreman, the former heavyweight champion who died earlier this year. What fewer people know is that in the 1970s, he was all about grit and intimidation — not just a master of power punches, but a man whose piercing glare conveyed raw menace. 

His persona was built on one unshakable belief: that strength meant never showing softness. Then, in 1977, after a brutal fight with Jimmy Young in Puerto Rico, Foreman collapsed in the locker room and had what he would later describe as a near-death experience that included an encounter with God. 

When he recovered, Foreman didn’t talk about revenge nor did he re-embrace his brutish behavior. Instead, he said quietly, “I have to change. I have to be kinder.”

Within days, Foreman retired from boxing. He was just 28 years old, still in his prime. Though he had never been religious, he became an ordained minister, preached on street corners, opened a youth center, fed the hungry, and spent years becoming someone gentler than the angry young fighter he had once been. 

And then came the twist: ten years later, he returned to boxing, softer, calmer, smiling — instead of scowling and glowering as he had in his younger years. Remarkably, that new, real version of George Foreman, the one who had finally met himself, became world champion again.

The greatest journey of all is the voyage of self-discovery, and ironically, it’s the one trip almost nobody books. In the rush for ambition and adrenaline, people often swap their real selves for a curated version meant for public display. 

At first, it’s like wearing a costume, but soon enough, that costume is a cage. Before long, your true self is concealed, masked by something polished on the outside yet painfully misaligned on the inside. What begins as ambition ends in dissonance and quiet self-destruction.

Which is why the divine instruction that opens Parshat Lech Lecha is so remarkable (Gen. 12:1): לֶךְ־לְךָ מֵאַרְצְךָ וּמִמּוֹלַדְתְּךָ וּמִבֵּית אָבִיךָ אֶל־הָאָרֶץ אֲשֶׁר אַרְאֶךָּ — “Go forth from your land, your birthplace, your father’s house, to the land that I will show you.” 

It sounds like an invitation to travel, and it was. Avraham traveled from Ur Kasdim to Charan, from Charan into Canaan, down to Egypt during the famine, and then back to Canaan again. He crossed deserts, borders, cultures, and civilizations. It was no mere symbolic stroll.

But that opening phrase, Lech Lecha, usually translated as “go forth,” is actually quite clumsy — because it doesn’t really mean “go forth.” More accurately, it means “go to yourself,” or “go for yourself.” 

And that is the revolutionary point. Yes, Avraham traveled — but God was telling him that the journey that mattered most wasn’t geographical. It was existential. Lech lecha — “Go to yourself.” Wherever you go, don’t lose sight of the true destination: you. Every step on the road was really a step inward.

Modern science backs up this ancient truth. Psychologists refer to it as the “geographic cure” — the mistaken belief that a new city, a new house, or a new job will magically solve life’s frustrations. 

Countless studies show that while moving might deliver a short-term jolt of excitement, the feeling rarely lasts. If you were restless in one place, you’ll likely be restless in the next place as well — only now with the additional stress of having to adapt to a new environment.

The pattern is clear: changing your surroundings won’t change your soul. And perhaps that’s why, when God told Avraham to Lech lecha, He wasn’t sending him somewhere new to find something there that he didn’t already have. Instead, God gave him fair warning that whatever he was looking for, he already had — and that it was this that he needed to focus on.

The great Chasidic master, Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, told one of the most disarmingly simple and profound stories about self-discovery ever recorded. 

There was once a poor tailor living in a little village in Ukraine who kept having the same dream night after night: a dazzling treasure lay buried beneath a famous bridge in Vienna. 

After weeks of this nightly vision, he could no longer ignore it. So he packed a few belongings and some food, kissed his family goodbye, and set off across Europe to claim his fortune.

When he finally arrived in Vienna, he found the bridge exactly as it had appeared in his dreams. But there was only one problem: it was crawling with imperial guards, and digging for treasure was impossible. 

The poor tailor loitered nearby, day after day, trying to look casual and waiting for a time when he might be able to dig. Eventually, a guard approached him. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

Cornered, the tailor told the truth. “I had a dream,” he confessed, “that if I came to this bridge, I would find a valuable treasure hidden beneath it.” 

The guard’s eyes widened in surprise, and then he burst out laughing. “A dream? You crossed half the world because of a silly dream? Last week, I dreamt that in some shabby little village in Ukraine, under the stove of a poor tailor’s house, there’s a chest filled with gold. Do you see me running off to chase it?” 

The tailor froze. That shabby little village was his village. And that poor tailor was him. The bridge was never the point. He thanked the guard politely, hurried home, dug beneath his own floor, and found the treasure that had been waiting for him all along.

That is the exact message of Lech Lecha. Avraham traveled, yes. But the Torah isn’t really interested in his meanderings. Rather, it wants to teach us that the longest distance he traveled was inward. 

Wherever he went, he never lost sight of who he was and who he was meant to be. His journey, like the tailor’s, shows us the importance of turning inward rather than outward for fulfillment. 

We often think that fulfillment is just over the horizon. But geography only changes your view, not your soul. If reinvention is what you need, it can only start from within. Lech lecha — go to yourself. That’s where the real treasure is — and where it has always been.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.