I am predictable.

Here's how this post is going to go - I am going to start with random observation about my life, tell you a story, make some jokes, impress you with my dark, slightly nerdy humor....you know - the usual. Then things are going to get real and I'm going to confess some slightly flawed, yet good-intentioned trait that is brought to light because of whatever happened in the first part of my post. I'll wrap things up with a charge for myself to be better and healthier - and end things with a sentence about who I am on the outside. Who I am on the inside. And something I plan to do that brings the whole post together.

You thought you were the only one that could read through my painfully predictable format? Wrong. As you may have noticed during the numerous posts I've written about myself - I am overly self-aware (and slightly self-obsessed). I'll be the first to admit these things, and anyone who tries to convince me otherwise will be written off as trying to sell me something. I'm a bit (ok, a lot) frustrating in this way - I know myself well enough to predict my future actions, but don't always do things to change things when one of my many faults are about to become the driving force behind my decision making. I like myself and that means I like my faults, too. I'm a personality and relationship perfectionist, meaning I gauge, predict and control my way through almost every scenario.

Call it a need for control, knowledge or sense of stability - but I like knowing everything about myself, never being caught unawares when someone brings to light something they don't like about me. I knew it first, I hated it first - and I learned to live with it, and so should you. I even am aware that I am frustratingly aware - rarely giving people the opportunity to bring new, valuable insight to my life.

Should I stop examining myself in an effort to release the iron grip of control I place on my personality? Should I continue examining, explaining and excusing the faults in my life under the hope that it's somehow making me a better person? At what point does the pursuit of self-improvement turn in to self-obsession?

I don't know. If I did, maybe I wouldn't have this narcissistic blog. But like I said, I like myself far too much today to let go of my faults. They make me....well, me. And most days, they're all I've got.

I am predictable. I am a narcissistic, know-it-all. I'm still ending my posts in the way I always do - because well, that's the point of this whole blog, isn't it?