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What Is Awareness? Thinking About Thinking
Awareness is more than being awake. It is the ability to notice our own thoughts, question our beliefs and choose how to act. Why cultivating it may be the most important thing we do.
We often use the word “awareness” casually: being aware of the time, aware of a problem, aware of our surroundings. But there is a deeper kind of awareness, one that philosophers have treated as the beginning of wisdom. It is the ability not only to think, but to notice how we think — to step back from our own beliefs, feelings and habits and examine them. This was the subject of the very first episode of our podcast, and it remains, I believe, one of the most important subjects of all.
Levels of Awareness
We can distinguish several levels:
- Awareness of the world: noticing what is happening around us.
- Awareness of ourselves: recognising our own feelings, desires and reactions.
- Awareness of our thinking: noticing where our beliefs come from, how we reason, and where we might be mistaken. Psychologists call this metacognition — thinking about thinking.
Most of daily life runs on autopilot. We react, repeat what we were taught and follow habits without reflection. Awareness begins when we interrupt this automatic flow and ask: why do I believe this? Why did I react that way? Is there another way to see this?
The Examined Life
Socrates famously declared that the unexamined life is not worth living. He spent his life questioning the citizens of Athens, showing them that beliefs they held confidently — about justice, courage and piety — were often confused or contradictory. His aim was not to humiliate them, but to awaken them. Real knowledge, he believed, begins with recognising the limits of what we know.
Awareness begins at the moment we stop asking only “what do I believe?” and start asking “why do I believe it?”
Awareness and Freedom
Without awareness, we are not fully free. A person who has never questioned the beliefs they inherited is, in an important sense, being directed by others — by parents, clerics, rulers or advertisers. Awareness allows us to examine those influences and decide which to keep. This is why authoritarian systems, religious and political, so often discourage questioning: an aware population is far harder to control.
Awareness and Responsibility
Awareness also brings responsibility. Once we know that our prejudices may be unfair, that our anger may be misplaced, or that our actions harm others, we can no longer hide behind ignorance. This is uncomfortable, and it is one reason people sometimes prefer not to look too closely at themselves. But it is also what makes moral growth possible.
How to Cultivate Awareness
- Pause before reacting. A few seconds of reflection can change a decision.
- Write down your beliefs and ask what evidence supports each one.
- Listen to people who disagree and try to understand their reasons.
- Notice your emotions — fear, pride, anger — and how they shape your thinking.
- Read widely, especially outside your own tradition.
Awareness is not a destination but a practice. No one becomes fully aware once and for all. But each time we step back and examine our own minds, we become a little freer, a little wiser and a little more responsible for the lives we lead. For individuals and for societies struggling to escape the grip of dogma, there is no more important beginning.
Further reading
On this site:
Sources and further study:
