Being self-aware can be discomforting

I was looking for books to read the other day, and more specifically, books that can give me a better judgement of character. Judgement of character is especially important if you are looking for the right people to meet in all aspects of your life. So far I have not yet found any. A book that I encountered on named How To Be A Good Judge Of Character Methods of Assessing Ability and Personality has some kind of religious influence in it. Even through I have recently been exploring the area of religion in my life, I hesitate to become a person that evolves my life around religion. As I was google searching, I came upon a post about such topic, that leads to a blog, then leads to a book named Hearts, Smarts, Guts, and Luck. It's a book on being self-aware that leads to successful entrepreneurship. The word entrepreneurship screams arrogance to me due to the character I associate with business majors in my undergraduate school. So I tend to stay away from it. The three co-authors for this self-help book also screams titles and influences to me. As I glanced at the short description of the three dominating looking businessman, I felt envious, jealous, worthless. They have money, influence, power, reputation, all of which I used to value, but no longer. They are self-aware, which I now value, and they apparently have enough to co-author a book about it. They are also thirty or forty years older than me, but I choose to ignore that.

It is then that made me realize that being self-aware is not always a feel-good drug. The envious and jealousy I felt increased my blood pressure, made me feel inferior and more keenly aware of my lesser role in my community. I also immediately realized the envious and jealousy I felt, and it made me feel ugly to even have such feeling in the first place. Just like one of my colleague used to tell me that she can be self-aware, but being self-aware made her feel uncomfortable about herself. I used to sneer and consider it a lack of courage to face such discomfort, now I think she is right. Often times being self-aware is constantly looking at myself at the ugliest, most realistic way possible. Being self-aware can get to the point that it messes up with your psyche. One person can look at him or herself this way every once in a while and know how to solve the problem. Another can also over expose him or herself to this painfully and uncomfortable way then fall into a negative feedback loop of despair.

But that's not to say that being self-aware is a bad thing. The questions that people ask on the blog of Hearts, Smarts, Guts, and Luck are more or less centered around finding ways to become self-aware. As if being self-aware is like having perfect pitch or photographic memory, you are either born with it or not. People generally want to be self-aware. People want that ability to honestly see themselves critically and honestly. Like positivity and willpower, self-awareness is a useful tool that comes in handy when life becomes unmanageable.