This is the most common question I get when it comes to my own self-awareness. I’m sure it’s a very common question. At first I didn’t even know I was asking it and I never thought of it. But now I do. It’s been a very humbling and strange experience.
As I mentioned at the beginning, the fact that we all have a tendency to do the things we know we shouldn’t. This is a very common one. For instance, when I was a kid, my dad would always tell me I was a terrible driver because I’d get to the grocery store and pull up to the cashier before he did. And I’d always get the same look on my face that I’d seen my dad get on those other occasions.
I think that people with a tendency towards self-awareness are the ones who know what they are doing and take that knowledge to heart. It is a tendency that is not just a problem for young people, but also for grown-ups. This is because when we think about our thoughts, habits, routines, impulses, and reactions, our minds are like a big computer program that is constantly calculating new ways to do things.
If you think about your habits, routines, impulses, and reactions, you’re probably not as free as you think. Self-awareness is a hard habit to break, but it’s not impossible. It’s just one of those habits that is hard to let go of.
We can just pick up our own old habits and we can get more out of them. Our mind can’t just stop and do what we want. We will be back to our old habits again.
If you can think, you can get more out of your habits. If you can just pick up your old habits and get more out of them. When you can do that, you will be able to stop thinking. We all have this internal program that tells us what to do, we just want to stop it. But the point is, because we are only aware of what we want to do, we have to let go of that program so we can take in more.
That was probably the most important thing. We all know that we can do it, but we never give in. We just don’t have time for it. But when we do, we do it because we want what we want to do.
When we know we want something, we don’t need to think about it. When we make a goal, we set aside time to work towards it. If you want to read more about this idea, I recommend “M. O’Reilly’s book, The Art of Not Doing.
You may be thinking “This is all well and good, but I have a girlfriend, I have to have a girlfriend!” But you cannot just have a girlfriend. We must be careful to be aware of what we want. You will not be with her if you are not aware of what you want. That’s what makes you vulnerable. You need to learn to not be vulnerable to yourself.
This is the beauty of the self. We know what we want and we work toward getting it. If we had to list our goals for 2012, we might have to make a list of all the things we want to accomplish in the next year. We’re not going to talk about them all, but I can tell you that we’ll want to be out in the woods, eating a big bag of nuts.
