Since we were young, we were always protected from the outside world by parent-like figures such as siblings and teachers. They all taught us to be aware of what happens because they won’t always be there for us forever. But I feel like the way they taught us is only for external purposes like how to keep up stellar grades or how to take care of our hygiene. I feel like they never really had the concept of having awareness for themselves, it could be because of the pressure of trying to live in a substantial environment without much help and pushing through it just to give us a better life. We all heard the phrase “I worked hard to give you life” and I think that gives the younger audience a fear of not being able to meet expectations. Many researchers have found out that motivation in students has depleted, not finding any more joy out of learning new things. A contribution that might conclude to this could be lack of self-awareness, how to please someone to get them to exceed their old selves. The brain mutates in many ways to help the person perceive the information given to them. But slowly as the brain ages, there is a limit in what can be comprehended and the constant act of failure really affects the person’s performance. But I do believe there are several ways of helping someone find their self-awareness. 

A simple way of finding self-awareness is visualization. Giving a student an assignment with no instructions is just the same as being stuck in a huge maze, the person can not continue without a goal. Susan Sontag said, “the dreariness of some of the obligations you have narrows your lives”. She is stating that if a person has too many goals but never does them, you will live a boring life. Every person should be able to understand what they are capable of doing and how to materialize the information given to them to live it out. For example, a person should write down a routine of what they want to accomplish and each step of the routine can be seen as a flight of stairs, you have to take one step before taking another. Sometimes you can eliminate some steps like how you can skip some stairs but it takes more effort to do that. Susan Sontag then states that, “It’s all about taking in as much of what’s out there”. The body is like a car,

it runs on fuel(attention span) and can drive a certain distance(motivation to do work) and it will need to be refueled(resting/obtaining information).

If visualization is not the person’s strong point, reconstruction can be another way of finding self-awareness. Being able to be in a comfortable state of mind and have knowledge stay in your head is essential for growth. In school, we were always taught by just having information laid right in front of us and to memorize it. But it gets repetitive and our brain slowly gets drained by it. “My favorite thing is freestyling the materials you have”, Blaire Somerville said. Pieces of information can be seen as a puzzle,

 there are different ways of looking at the piece but it can only fit in one way. This applies to people, for example, some students create flashcards or talk amongst a study group in order to memorize the information. They all learn the same thing, just a different process of learning it. “You get a chance to do stuff and experiment”, Blaire Somerville stated. Finding the best way to keep information in your head will definitely help you proceed in life without any doubts. 

Now, this step might be the most crucial step but not everyone is super comfortable reaching out, including me. But I think having multiple perspectives around during a grieving period really helps the individual. This society puts a label on everyone that we are judgemental and we always critique each other, such as the term “make your first impression matter”. People who say that they aren’t judgemental really aren’t being true to themselves, they can be unbiased but everyone judges no matter what. It’s a habit that everyone faces and I think that might be the wall that stops everyone from communicating. “I spoke with an encyclopedic knowledge” and “Gradually I came to say less and less”, Barry Lopez exclaimed. A lot of people get mocked or bullied and it gives a negative connotation so we tend to avoid it by not opening up. But there are times that we feel super lonely and need someone to talk to. Having multiple perspectives can help the individual find their failures and mistakes and can help guide them out of that dark void.