Why Supporting Self Awareness in Teenagers Matters More Than Academics

Our childhood was full of energy, natural creativity, and openness. The world and our lives as we experienced them were direct, not something we needed to interpret or conceptualize. Everything felt fresh and new, every day and every moment. We had our inclinations and compulsions, but they didn’t burden our lives. We were driven by curiosity and an active sense of wonder.

But as a child moves into puberty, something big and important happens. The brain changes rapidly, hormones shift, the body grows, and the mind becomes more complex. This is the time when sexual maturity reaches its fruition, and simultaneously, the brain develops the capacity for a more complex sense of self-awareness.

This is a phase, a key moment in life, a chance to develop self-reflection, deeper self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and balance. It's also the time we can help teenagers become aware of our inclusive interconnectedness with nature. Puberty is when the mind is most dynamic and fluid. It’s the ideal time for the mind to grow holistically, unfolding our innate natural genius at a remarkable pace.

But to what extent have we given teenagers this chance? To what extent have we created the infrastructure and support for this tremendous possibility? Is it good enough?

If it were, wouldn’t we have Einsteins, Da Vincis, and Tagores in every household?

Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve done well enough.

Puberty is the time when our brains develop the capacity to deepen complex self-awareness. It’s the phase when nature expects us to focus on self-reflection and growing awareness of our own body and mental processes.

But instead of supporting this emerging self-awareness, society overwhelms this sensitive period with heavy academics. With vast amounts of content crammed into a limited time, we’re left with little space for reflective learning, self-inquiry, meaningful conversations, or exploration of purpose, identity, and the nature of human consciousness.

Parents are concerned about our future survival, and everyone conditions them to believe that the education system will prepare us to survive better. The education system distracts us from developing self-awareness and forces us into a straitjacket of conformity, all in the name of economic development.

The primary focus of the education system is to develop our intellect, to dissect, compare, judge, objectify, and calculate. It conditions us to see life and everything in it as objects or concepts to be interpreted, understood, and owned. Not only have we lost the opportunity to develop self-awareness, but we’ve also developed a distorted sense of life itself.

This outdated system is a legacy of the Industrial Revolution, designed to train people to follow instructions, obey authority, and conform. We are shaped into robots built to fit into an industry. Puberty, a time meant for inner discovery and the awakening of higher potential- gets hijacked and turned into a race for survival, achievements, and approval.

The focus of life shifts from "being" to "becoming".

The overdevelopment of human intellect, combined with the creation of intense desires for achievement at the expense of self-awareness, especially during the sensitive phase of sexual maturity, has deeply corrupted our view of the world. Everything around us starts to appear as something to possess and exploit. We begin to suffer a constant sense of lack if we don’t attain the objects we desire. This mindset may be one of the underlying factors contributing to the rise in sexual violence, including rape.

If, as a society, we fail to create space and a possibility for the development of self-awareness, the hormonal changes of puberty can lead us to excessive body consciousness and a lack of inner regulation, turning one into a slave to sexual urges.

In this age of Artificial Intelligence, where intellectual tasks are increasingly handled by machines, I hope the human emphasis on intellect will naturally decrease. With the rise of AI, we must take this opportunity to revamp our education system and shift our focus toward the holistic development of self-awareness and the mind.

When we neglect the development of self-awareness during puberty, we become confused about our role in life. We struggle to make meaningful life decisions and are more vulnerable to peer pressure and groupthink. Our identity becomes fragile or externally defined, shaped by likes, comments, and appearances. We struggle to recognize or regulate our emotions. We develop poor coping mechanisms for stress and conflict, are more prone to emotional outbursts or internal suppression, and are more susceptible to anxiety, depression, or aggression.

Puberty is a time when peer relationships become central. Without self-awareness, we may lack empathy, misread social cues, and become prone to social isolation or toxic relationships. Our self-esteem may depend on external validation. In the absence of self-reflection, we may engage in risky behaviors, such as substance abuse, unsafe sex, or delinquency. We also become more susceptible to identity-based extremism or cult-like thinking, conforming at the cost of authenticity.

This lack of self-awareness often has long-lasting or even lifelong effects that extend into adulthood, influencing everything from mental health and career choices to relationships and, above all, losing the possibility to explore our innate genius, self-actualization and enlightenment. We lose our ability for inner joy, spontaneity, wit and humor.

We have lost touch with our awareness and natural consciousness, becoming trapped in the compulsions of the body and mind. We mistake these compulsions for our unique self-expression and end up living in delusion. Society hasn’t just succeeded in training us to "become" something; we’ve also come to believe that we "need" to "become" something.

From an early age, we’re conditioned by society and the education system to repress our natural ability to simply "be" in the here and now. We’re taught to appear mature by conforming to their expectations, being obedient, and being serious about our future.

The development of technology only aggravates this condition.

We may appear mature, pretend all our lives, attain success, and construct a false sense of fulfilment, but in the process, we may become very serious and dull in life. Maybe this could be the reason why we all grow up to become boring, serious and begin to lack a sense of humor.

If we continue down this path, the future will see individuals becoming increasingly isolated. Not only will we struggle to connect with others, but we will also struggle to connect with ourselves. People may begin to resent their ancestors and reject all forms of systems. Depression will grow. Suicide will become more common. Life will lose its vitality; people will stop truly living, and they will merely survive or vegetate.

We will lose our unique creativity and inner genius. And with that, we will also lose the ability to bring about revolutionary, transformative changes in any area of life.

However, it doesn’t have to be this way. The future is just an imagination we project based on our memory. When we look at our present condition and realize how our consciousness has been corrupted, we may feel the urge to blame, blame society, our parents, or the system. But blaming is not of the present but of the past. Responsibility exists only here and now. We exist here and now. Life is in the present. And this is where all our power lies.

We need to listen to ourselves. To our mind, it's ways, its patterns, its games. We should live our lives as active listeners of the mind. We listen to so many sounds around us, how about listening to our mind as well? Listening not just to the sounds, but also to the silence between the sounds.

Listen to the gap between the thoughts. There is silence in that gap. And as we continue to listen to it, the gap expands. The silence deepens. And self-awareness begins to grow.

You start to feel an integration happening. Old mental grooves and conditioning begin to loosen. As they loosen, life reopens. Your innate joy and humor begin to sprout again. Your mind becomes whole, and dynamic, and begins to deepen. You feel young and fresh, as if you’ve been reborn. You regain your sense of wonder. You are now like a child, but mature.

You begin to see the interconnectedness of life. You grow in integrity. You don’t just live with your mind; you let life live through you. You let your awareness become your home. And from there, let life unfold. Let genius unfold.

Life is never the same again.

Develop Self-awareness Now