Self Aware

I am becoming a great deal more self aware and starting to see things in myself which I did not notice before. I am also starting to see things that I do not want to have in my behaviour or speech or thoughts.  The more I focus on the application of the Dharma, the more I see how I need to apply it. I think this is good.

One area I have really made some very big improvements of late is how I view others. I use to put some people on a pedestal (not for any good reason which they have shown me, but rather just because they hold a position or look like someone I should look up to) and found it very hard to talk to them, but recently I have become aware that everyone is just a human being, like me. Doing the best they can in this life (without a manual), just like me. While I see some are doing it better than others, I am the same as all other people and they are the same as me.

I have many problems (also many good points) and it is hard to see that others also have problems, especially when they are so very good at covering them up. This is something which I have come to realise, it is not that there are many people all around me who are without issues/problems/troubles, and therefore I stand out as the only one with issues, the different one; it is because many people hide them well and just make me appear to be different. But I only appear different to me as I can see inside myself and know my issues. All others look at me and are probably thinking the same as me, 'wow, he seems together' because they can see inside themselves and see their own issues, but can not see mine.

The job I am doing at the moment is the central hub or coordinator for a lot of information coming from a lot of different people. It is in this position that I am finding that even people in very high positions, still struggle from time to time.  I don't smile at their struggles, but it makes me feel like I'm just one of the team to know that these people are just like me, and that I am just like them.

My biggest issue is that: I have never mastered how to hide my problem and openly ask questions that others would not.

Anyway, how has this helped.  Well, I am finding it a little easier to approach people, to talk to people, to not take what they say as the total truth (it is just their personal truth). Therefore I am finding that I don't need it do all the changing, I am not the odd one out who doesn't fit, and to accept others who might be a little unskilled.