What has your audiophile experience taught you about yourself?

I have learned, most of all, that I am not a true audiophile.
I am, first of all, a passionate for music that drools for nice gear.

I love the discovery of new music, so I listen to radio (FM or internet) a lot more than to my other sources. And when my DJ mood strikes I enjoy spending hours spinning vinyl or CDs while dancing or at least moving around with the sound. I do it alone and I do it with friends - and it gets better with some nice drinks and snacks on the side.
Not a party guy, not a head-banger going crazy regardless what's playing, just a physical way of enjoying the music. And yes, paying attention to and vibrating with details like "that note" or "that silence". But never caring about textures, attack and decay and so on and so on (all the jargons used by reviewers and the so called audiophiles).

Me and my friends, all related to music in a professional way (musicians, singers, sound technicians...), we don't seat to listen to the difference between cables and speakers and all that. We simply enjoy the music and the so many interpretations by fine musicians and singers.
And of course, we all know that better equipment reveals more from the recordings; but we also have a strong belief that after a certain point (component true quality rather than price tag) the improvement made to the sound is close to none.

So yes, we (myself in particular) enjoy owning nice sounding equipment, affordable to our pockets, but realized a long time ago that most of what we read and hear from audiophile reviewers, magazines, listeners, companies, is a lot of fairy dust and snake oil.

So I guess what my audiophile experience taught me about myself was that I am very realistic and logical about the audiophile world and that I know my limits when it comes to spending money in order to get satisfaction from listening to music.

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.