Staying beholden to my own thought

As I've gotten older, I've  acknowledged that there is an aspect of my personality that wants to please others. When I was younger, I just thought this was part of my personality that just wanted to learn and adapt - to find new truths and expand into areas of knowledge that others couldn't grow into due to self-imposed rules. I considered myself a free-spirited. I now look at this trait as something of a disability. Upon reflection, I had poor boundaries.  This brings to mind the important distinction between freethinking and no-thinking: the inability to see when ideas and actions might have consequences that I hadn't considered.  I was more than willing to entertain thoughts and ideas that could be harmful and surround myself with people of similar ilk. 

As a consequence, I would allow harm to myself by not enforcing any boundaries as I had no sense of needing to keep ideas away.  Oddly I could find boundaries in some areas (like saying away from extremely dangerous stunts or hard drugs). I think these are areas where I had vested time in thinking about harms 0 really imaging serious where harm played out in a pragmatic way.  But in other areas I didn't really engage in any thorough deep dive into perceived dangers. Perhaps some part of me considered that sort of thinking to be the prattling of an old spinster as apposed to actual wisdom. Now as I face mid-life, I see that it was really a lack of development. I chose not to find discipline which led to suppression of real growth - both in my character and in my ability to find focus in things that matter. Only through the trials and tribulations of having things go wrong can I see where my troubles began. And it is through these lessons that I must aspire to not let the same mistakes happen with my child. I must be grounded in discipline so that I may grow with minimal self harm, and I must model my process so that others can see the benefits of strong boundaries.