The more people I meet who tell me, “I am working on myself. I am so aware of my behaviour,” the bigger the red flag I sometimes see in them.
Why do I think this?
Because they will always project people through their own eyes while saying, “I understand you. I can imagine myself being in your place.” But self-awareness does not automatically mean empathy; we can understand ourselves very well and still completely misunderstand another person. And then they walk away and draw the line based on their own views, while forgetting about the other person’s views, beliefs, experiences, and reality.
I am surounded with Millennials, Gen Z, and all the other generations that exist, and probably some that do not exist but are there because we, as people, must label everything. And I can see how this trend of constantly working on yourself can separate people and does not allow human growth to happen as it should.
For centuries, and we can talk here about both the scientific evolutionary approach to human beings and the religious beginnings of humanity, we have been beings of community. Our emotional growth has always depended on human interactions and community.
But people nowadays sometimes seem to forget that.
They exclude themselves from experiencing the world. They start talking to computers about their internal world instead of talking to colleagues, friends, or other human beings and looking for answers in the actual world.
And I do see hope for people who are willing to express their internal world through their artistic work. But for most, working on yourself can become another form of isolation when all the work happens inside your own head and not through real interactions with other people.
Most of these thoughts have been coming to me recently while observing the people around me.
Women And Relationships
It seems that the more people try to accept themselves and their differences, the more they sometimes come to judge others. I especially see this in women’s environments.
Many women are intimidated by other women because of their looks. I think one of the reasons can be the lack of a strong female role around them while growing up, a woman who teaches you to accept yourself, your body, and your beauty.
But the problem goes further than this.
When a woman starts feeling like an outsider because of the way she looks in circles of other women, she can choose to exclude herself even further. And then she can start judging the exact same group of women she once felt judged by.
And this makes me genuinely sad.
Because, as a woman, I can first say that, with all the good sides I have, I always lack something. And I know that.
But that does not make me judge other women. Instead, I take examples from them. I accept the things I think they are doing well, and the things I see as something I do not want for myself, I avoid.
I have also learned that there is probably no woman who has gone through life without facing some type of shame. The only difference is that some women are more resilient than others.
And that is actually the power of us.
If we would all accept each other for what we are, we could create such powerful groups, because there are no bonds like female friendships. Entering the circle of women can feel like having angels around yourself for a lifetime.
I wish more women would become supportive of each other and stop judging one another based on looks, behaviour, or what they choose to do with their lives.
The more people I meet who tell me, “I am working on myself. I am so aware of my behaviour,” the bigger the red flag I sometimes see in them.
Too Much Self-Awareness
The reason behind this thought is that, in some cases, these exact same people turn out to be the most selfish types of people, with very little urge to actually change themselves.
And I think this can be one of the most dangerous forms of self-awareness.
The ultimate truth is that we all project the world, people, their stories, and their experiences through our own lenses. Sometimes, other people are exactly what exposes the parts of ourselves that we cannot see alone.
And if we do not see that, we will always make the people around us feel worse than they already did. We will make them feel unheard because we are constantly correcting their reality based on our own.
And this is where human empathy and acceptance can end.
When we cannot accept our own default human mistake, that we project our own world onto others, we become less capable of actually understanding them.
Even worse, we may not accept that we are doing it at all.
Beeing In The Real World
Therefore, I do wish that more people would start to be more aware of what they say when they open their mouths.
I wish people would start to learn, grow, and fail by validating their beliefs, experiences, and emotions in the real world, among people.
By communicating their opinions.
Or by listening to opinions they do not agree with.
And by experiencing people who are different from them.
We cannot grow only by looking inward, or by asking AI, books and television. We grow through the friction, relationships, disagreements, love, friendship and experiences we have with other people.
I wish we were all more present in this time and in this world, instead of living inside our own clouds. Because maybe real growth does not happen when we understand ourselves perfectly.
Maybe real growth happens when we realize that we can never fully understand ourselves without other people.
