Are You Too Self-Aware?
Self-awareness is overrated.
“Self-awareness” seems to be the new self-help buzzphrase lately. Internet gurus like Gary Vaynerchuk or Mark Manson have made piles of content about its importance, and it seems like everyone is obsessed with “knowing themselves” in some form or another.
At the same time, the typical interpretation of self-awareness is vague at best and harmful at worst.
Traditional self-help books often seek to help us recognize the parts of ourselves that are flawed and need to be improved. A few years ago, I read a book called Unf*ck Yourself. The title alone implied that I was “f*cked” and needed help. It was a good sell. Some might call this a “growth mindset”, but this personal cynicism is very different from what psychologist Carol Dweck was talking about when she coined the term in the mid-2000s. It’s a fine line between being self-aware and self-critical.
The deep-rooted existential problem with self-awareness is that the “self” as we know it doesn’t really exist. The reason that it’s so hard to “find ourselves” is because the self is an illusion. It appears to be in front of us, but nothing's really there when we reach for it. So what’s the point of self-awareness?
