I’ll admit, there was a moment in time when I never considered myself a “person.” I did not think about the people around me. I did not look for the good in people. I was selfish, and I had no interest in being part of a crowd. I was a selfish, self-centered, and selfishly self-obsessed person.
But then I met someone, and that change happened. There’s a small group of people I’ve been closest to in life. A group of friends and family that I’ve grown up with, and who I’ve supported and loved through thick and thin. Those people in my life have never been selfless, just caring. It’s that simple. For the first time in my life, I realized I can be selfish and selfishly self-centered.
I’ve been reading a lot of articles lately about the value of friendship, and how it has a key role to play in shaping our lives. The truth is, we are more likely to become self-centered, self-absorbed, and self-centered than we are to become friends. We all have our own preferences, agendas, expectations, and likes and dislikes. We all tend to see the world in our own way, and no one else’s.
In the same way that you don’t want to be friends with someone who can’t be friends with you, you don’t want to be friends with someone who can’t be friends with someone. We all have our own preferences, agendas, expectations, and likes and dislikes, and we all tend to see the world in our own way.
In real life friends are the closest people we have. They provide a sense of belonging and help us maintain a sense of safety. When we are on our own, we tend to see the world the same way as everyone else. We can easily fall apart when we’re not around someone we love, and we’re more likely to let our guard down when left alone. We rely on each other, and we rely on each other to help keep us safe.
When we are alone, we tend to project our own image of who we are onto the people we are with, and assume that they know what we are like. We can forget that they don’t know ourselves the way we think we do, or even the way we think they do. Or, worse, we can completely forget that they have just been exposed to a completely different perspective.
So we can think of ourselves as being totally “normal” when we are with someone, or as being utterly “alive” when we are alone, but when we are “alive” with someone, we are often unaware that we are actually not who we think we are. We can often be so caught up in our own thoughts that we forget that the people around us have been through so much.
We are often so caught up in how our thoughts and feelings affect our behaviors that we are unaware that we have been affected in the first place. A few years ago, the Internet was a new thing. We were just discovering it, and it was shocking to us all. As we grew more familiar with online communities and their influence on our lives, we all learned that our friends, family, and work colleagues were always trying to influence our behavior, even if it wasn’t always for the best.
It all goes back to the idea of “self-awareness” in the first place. If we just started using our brains a little, we’d be better able to control our behavior. All that’s missing is a little self-awareness.
Self-awareness is about being aware of your own thoughts and actions and then taking those actions as your own. Self-awareness can only be obtained by practice. The trick is that the more often you practice, the better you get at it. The more you practice, the better you get at thinking about your actions.
