The Power of Self-Awareness Over False Affirmations - my 90 minutes with Gurukuli boys.
Recently, I had the opportunity to conduct a poetry writing workshop for a group of Gurukuli boys. One of the activities was to create acrostics using their own names, a fun and engaging exercise to help them express their self-identity. What struck me the most during this activity was the contrast between what I had expected and what actually unfolded. When the younger children began, they chose adorable and positive adjectives—nothing surprising there. But as I moved on to the older boys, around 10 years and above, I noticed something quite remarkable. Instead of selecting grandiose or exaggerated words to describe themselves, they opted for words that reflected a sense of self-awareness. Some boys described themselves as "distracted" or "dutiful," and even one child chose "annoying" and "obnoxious" for his acrostic. What caught me off guard was how genuinely comfortable they were with these terms—not in a self-deprecating or negative way, but