self-awareness is not a personality

there is something peculiar about the phrase "i know myself", particularly when it comes from someone whose behaviour suggests otherwise. we seem to have developed an extraordinary confidence in our ability to understand our own psychology, as though experiencing something automatically qualifies us to explain it. we know our attachment styles, our insecurities, our defence mechanisms. we have names for everything, which is fortunate, because apparently naming a problem is considerably easier than having to do anything about it.

i find it interesting how often people confuse having an explanation for their behaviour with actually understanding it. you are not emotionally unavailable because you've identified an avoidant attachment style. you're emotionally unavailable, and now you have an interesting explanation for it. understanding why you behave a certain way should make you more conscious of that behaviour, not provide you with a convenient exemption from changing it.

we have also become remarkably good at turning flaws into personality traits. the inconsiderate become independent, the unreliable become spontaneous, and those incapable of accepting criticism develop a profound sensitivity to being misunderstood. with enough psychological vocabulary, almost any undesirable quality can be made to sound like an interesting character quirk. coincidentally, this applies to many areas of life, and not just people. one should wonder how much of our individuality is simply poor behaviour with excellent public relations.

the real test of self-awareness, however, is what happens when your understanding of yourself becomes inconvenient. you might consider yourself empathetic until someone else's needs require an actual compromise. you might pride yourself on intellectual honesty until an argument requires admitting you're wrong. most of us are considerably more impressive in our own autobiographies than we are in practice, although this is hardly surprising when we're also the authors.

perhaps knowing yourself should make you less attached to the person you've decided you are. there is little value in developing an increasingly sophisticated account of your personality if its primary purpose is to justify never having to reconsider it. otherwise, you're not particularly self-aware.