Who are your friends? Reaction versus introspection

I firmly believe that your friends are a reflection of you, and I take great care in choosing who I spend my time with. I started thinking about this more deeply after reading Gordo's latest blog about being positive, as he, too, stresses the importance of surrounding yourself with high quality people. He also mentioned the need to be constantly aware of yourself and your motivations. I love him for this because it is SO important for me in my own life to be aware of myself, and to be around people who also are aware of themselves.
I continually find myself looking at a situation among myself and others, or among others that I am hearing about, and I can see what the motivations are. I can see why this person is acting a certain way, why that person is angry, etc. But often I am surprised that the players themselves are not at all aware of WHY they are doing what they are doing. I find that most people in this world do not take the time to analyze feelings. They feel something, and they react. They don't ever stop to think about WHY they are feeling what they are feeling. They feel their feelings, and they automatically assume they are valid and that those feelings are someone else's fault.
I deal with this quite a bit with some people that are close to me but that I cannot remove from my life out of obligations to others. These are challenging relationships. They challenge me to be strong, to be aware, to manage my emotions, to be the person I want to be no matter what is done to me first. And really, what is the alternative? The alternative is to allow other people to control my behavior, to control ME. Do I want unaware, reactive people to control what I do? Hell no!! So instead I use these relationships to continually challenge me to remember my own values and stand alone when others around me make choices that don't fit with my lifestyle and morals.
These relationships challenge me to be a better person, and being aware and having high standards for myself means that I must treat everyone in my life with respect so that I live up to my own standards. I must not take advantage of people, I must not play on people's weaknesses, I must apologize quickly and with sincerity when I am wrong. I must not act to serve my ego, and I must embrace humbling experiences. I must not overestimate my importance in the world. I must recognize that drama is a creation of the ego and reject it.
The more I surround myself with aware, mindful people, the more I get to enjoy my own strengths and positive qualities, and the less I have to focus on improving my weaknesses. The relationships that I CHOOSE to engage in are the reward, and they bring out the best in me. They are the reward for the time I spend working on being mindful in my relationships with reactive people.
Being around reactive people is great for me in some ways, because I do very much enjoy being an armchair psychologist. I love breaking down people's motivations, I love how transparent most people are, I love the calm that I feel when I can understand someone's behavior. I don't ever share what I am thinking with these people, of course. They don't want to hear it and they are free to go through life any way they choose. Plus it will just make them angrier with me and more likely to lash out. What it offers me is a way of removing myself from the emotional free-for-all that some people live in. It also gives me a chance to work on eliminating negative behavior in myself that I see in others rather than allowing the negative behavior of others to act as a justification for my own bad choices. That is a big life lesson for me and one I am really working on right now. I am dedicating myself more and more to becoming who I want to be, at all times and in all situations, and letting go of the possible negative outcomes it may create among certain (overpowering, overbearing) people in my life.
Awareness is freedom. Being reactive means you are at the mercy of your subconscious, that you are not free of your past, and that other people can control you. I do not want my past to control me, I do not want the weaker people in my life to control me, and so I continue to strive to be my best, to always be able to look inside myself and be proud and sure.