Pros and cons: self-awareness

They say ignorance is bliss, but if you're ignorant about your own mind, it doesn't work out as well.

One of my greatest strengths, in my opinion, has always been self-awareness.  For some reason, I've always been relatively good at realizing what I'm feeling or doing and (usually) why.  It's nice because it helps me figure out what I want to change about myself.  Of course, just because I can see a solution doesn't make it any easier to achieve it, although it's better than the position of those who can't even see their problem.

Self-awareness can also get in the way, though.  Sometimes, I'm too aware of what's going on internally, and when I can't change something negative right away, I start feeling self-conscious about it.  And when I change, I notice it, and it weirds me out.  For example, I've noticed that I became a little bit more mature and confident in myself during my time in LA.  However, I have this habit of reverting to my old ways when I'm around my family, which I think is relatively normal.  But I love my family so much, and they are still a HUGE part of who I am.  This makes it hard when I'm around them now (all of my siblings were home for Easter as a surprise for my parents) and I feel myself reverting to a little bit less mature version of myself.  I hate it.  I love my family and how they help me grow, but it's hard when all that goes along with a less desirable side of myself showing itself on the outside.  So that's something I need to work on.

There are some things about myself that I don't understand quite as well as my maturity and the way it's affected by certain people.  I get annoyed with myself when I don't understand what's going on.  I'll be feeling something that doesn't make any sense and then I'll get all irritated because it doesn't make any sense.  It's actually kind of funny because I do the same thing with other people.  I try really hard (internally) to understand people's little quirks, and even when they're weird and I don't think they're good quirks, I'm able to get over it.  But when I simply can't understand something that someone does, I just get really frustrated by it.  I guess I sort of treat myself the same way that I treat other people...I just understand myself a little bit more.