Is being self aware stopping us from being happy?

Self-awareness is a double edged sword. It is important to understand social cues and act appropriately in certain circumstances, but has it become so debilitating that it has ultimately lost meaning? Are people too self-aware that they can no longer function without over-analysing every waking moment of their lives?

Self awareness is your ability to understand your own thoughts and feelings, but also how others may perceive and react to your actions. It influences how you view yourself and the world around you, and in terms of development, personal reflection is vital in not

only improving yourself, but also your relationships with others. There is a level of emotional maturity needed to be able to assess your own actions and truly hold yourself accountable, which is what makes self-awareness so important. It is great that nowadays,

people are making an effort to actively improve how they engage with their own thoughts and others.

However, it seems that over-analysing your actions can become counter productive. With the rise of “cringe” and other internet trends making normal human behaviour seem strange, self-awareness has transitioned more into how others perceive us, instead of how we view ourselves. People are scared to step out of line because they are worrying about how other people will view them. The constant over analysing of our own features: our

appearance, personality, motivations, and actions, makes it harder to truly be ourselves. How can we put our best foot forward if we constantly question if it is good enough? There is a current rise in individualism, where everyone is both obsessed with being different, but different in a way that people still perceive them as cool and interesting, but also being part of the crowd, and not wanting to draw attention to themselves.

The key to happiness might just be ignorance. This doesn’t mean being completely unaware of the way you behave, after all, self-awareness is very important. This cannot be denied. However, it might be holding back your happiness if you use it to disguise your social anxieties. There is no shame in letting your guard down and remembering that not everyone is watching you all the time, everyone is doing their own thing. Who has time to judge others?

Edited by Abi Hall