What has your audiophile experience taught you about yourself?

Probably the most important things I've learned are (in no particular order):

(1) Surround yourself with ears you trust.

(2) Don't place much faith in most reviews.

(3) Contentment usually does not come easily in this hobby. 

(4) Money guarantees little.

(5) To get to where you TRULY want to be takes a LOT of time, effort, and experimentation. And often money.

Upgrade at least once a month.

I found that I can be very curious about gear/tweaks and was susceptible to the audiophile chatter out there. I at one point was contemplating buying the audiophile SATA cables that connect from my computer's motherboard to the hard drive. At that point I just said stop to the BS out there and concentrate on the music. There will always be someone out there selling you an audio tweak that promises to take you to audio heaven with your budget system. I've been happier ever since I just said stop to the tweaking and auditioning of different cables etc.

Love of music is the primary driver. Those certain musical pieces that emotionally move me to hunt down what I heard and listen over and over until I finally "get it" and absorb it are why gear has value to me. The means to reproduce music has always been secondary but it became ever more important that the conveyance and enjoyment was to be of high fidelity and accurate. I think I’ve finally hit the asymptote as my focus is 99% on the music these days. Also, a sense of confidence that one’s system will deliver what is about to be played is very helpful. Having said all this, I upgraded headphones recently for late night listening.

At First,
I was just child who loved music and had a phonograph.
2nd, the phonograph stopped working and I tried to fix it by trying to pack ribbon spring back. Instead, the spring went all the way up till reached ceiling.
3rd, I'm in tears and dad brought Telefunken tube console with turntable, tuner, r2r and 8-track player. That triggered me collecting LPs. When it was not sounding good or breaking, I watched dad to replace bad tubes by simple swapping good with bad.
4th I go to after-school to study radio and electronics and also go to the school of music to study accordion, piano and guitar.
5th, I realized in depth -- I LOVE MUSIC and something definitely I'd like to do: either play it or listen via good sounding equipment.
6th, I spend more time in after-school than in school trying to void showing up at school as often as possible (finding various reasons of absence such as rehearsal or illness) to dedicate myself to my devotions: music and electronics.
7th, I'm savvy enough to fix TV or any home-electronic device, but my skills for music not picking up or picking up extremely slow. I'd finally built my modest repertoire consisting of mostly classical dances such as Mazurka, Waltz, Polonaise, Adagio of various classical composers such as Brahms, Tchaikovsky, Strauss. I've also got some recording equipment and after listening to myself recorded as if I would be performing live for at least half-hour, I'm loosing hopes to improve as a musician :(
8th, I found out that trucks from Europe crossing almost right where I lived and started a conversation about records that I need. Every time I was able to get rare records (I only was interested in unused condition period), I was bringing them home, record to r2r and than sell them on market to purchase another to re-sell. Still attending elementary school mostly on exams
9th, I built the bank-roll to buy-sell records and collectibles including great audio-electronics.
10th, Established a gigantic record collection with mostly 80's music that I listen till now. It always gets upgraded and it always has additions and it always grows despite the fact that I sell most at the store and online.