I am a self-aware person. I know this. Why? Because for one, I’ve never done anything good or bad and I really don’t care about that stuff. I know that if I do something that makes me happy, then it’s going to be good. I know the word “self-awareness” has a certain connotation. It carries a negative connotation.
I know this as well, but that doesn’t mean that self-awareness is a bad thing. People can be self-aware and still be terrible people. That’s not an argument for self-awareness though. The problem is that it can be an excuse for terrible behavior. The problem with this is that it’s hard to get people to stop doing awful things.
I love that you brought up this issue. Self-awareness is a good thing. If you think about it, if you are aware of what you are doing, then you are also aware of why you are doing it. You are aware of the consequences to your actions. You are aware of your strengths and weaknesses. You are aware of your life’s journey. You are aware of your own choices. You are self-aware.
The problem is that self-awareness is a slippery slope. Sometimes it comes easy, but often it takes a lot of effort to be aware of the consequences and then to act accordingly. I have had the pleasure of seeing a lot of the same old “self-awareness” excuses play out over and over again in the past couple of years. I have also seen a lot of the same old excuses for things like poor diet and bad habits. People are not self-aware.
In the case of self-awareness being slippery, it’s easy to look at the self-awareness excuse and say, “I know I shouldn’t be eating this junk food. I should be exercising more.” But the fact is if you don’t exercise more, you’ll just die younger.
This is one of the most common excuses used by people who don’t understand why they can’t exercise more. If you are like me, you get a little confused when someone says they have a bad habit. And that makes me think that maybe I have a bad habit, but its not like I just eat junk food and die, or whatever. I just have this tendency to get sick.
I have to admit, I really don’t like the idea of thinking that I have a bad habit. A bad habit of eating unhealthy junk food is not something that should be considered a bad habit. In fact, the main reason I eat junk food is to prevent health problems. In other words, if you think I’m not eating a healthy diet, you’re probably right. But if you think that I’m eating junk food because its bad for me, well thats just silly.
When you think of something bad happening to you, you often react like a character in a horror movie. You have a tendency to think, “Oh shit! Someone died!” or “Someone got attacked!” or “Someone is getting sick from eating this stuff!” You think of these things as things that have happened but you have no idea what happened or how, so you just think that you are the victim.
Sure, it may seem that way, but think of it like this: We can all relate to the feeling of being the victim. Think of the moment that you realize that you’ve been the victim of some horrific crime. Or if you’ve been the victim of a horrible accident, imagine the shock you feel when you realize that you were the victim of the accident itself.
