Without doubt our youth, majority of them, have been
enslaved with both mental and physical indolence, which has reduced them to
victims of idleness, despondency, perpetual blame-trading, blind agitation, political
machineries and sycophants. These has been buoyed by the get-rich quick
attitude and something for nothing mentality. They no longer subscribe to the
notion which emphasizes the existence of dignity in labor, but they hope
towards attaining the financial altitude reached by, more often than not,
individuals whose affluence cannot be justified on the basis of the positions
they occupy.
Our youth, among many other natural fears, are afraid of
hard-work; they are quick to fall at the feet of materialism, luxury, pleasure
and promiscuity which are by-products of immediate gratification. Delayed gratification is a dreaded word,
hard-work is equated with poverty, and honest wealth is seen as an illusion.
It is this mentality that we must begin to reshape for our
youth to begin the process of true empowerment and self-actualization; this
brings us to the issue of poverty, which is a coin with two sides. One of the sides
of the coin is termed mental while the other side is the physical form of
poverty. We focus more on the physical manifestation of poverty, including the failure
of government to cater for our welfare, while forgetting that it has a lot more
to do with an individual’s belief and thought pattern. While we agree that the
government’s effort has been so far insufficient in reducing poverty; in most
cases it is self-inflicted, as a result of the choices and decisions made and
taken by the individual.
While our talent, potential and zeal are in waste; we make
of ourselves dependents of a system that has no regards for our growth and progress.
What does it really take, in the real sense, to provide qualitative and free
education for our teeming despondent youth population, or to put in place
critical infrastructure and pro-poor policies that would open-up opportunities
for the army of unemployed youth to get meaningfully and productively engaged.
Is it that we do not have the money or the expertise to provide the necessary basic
needs? As for me, it is just the absence of sincere-hearted political will to
bring it to fruition.
The youth must begin to look inwards, rather than blaming
their circumstances on leaders, through self-realization and belief. We must
find what we love and do what we love, by building careers rather than becoming
job seekers. We should be solution-providers in our communities, by identifying
needs and fulfilling it. Our youth must put on their entrepreneurial thinking
cap, in generating innovations that would change their lives and the world at
large. We must become too ambitious to wait on the government or any individual
to empower us, before we can give meaning to our lives. After all, no
government can provide jobs for all its citizens, in advanced countries such as
America and China; it is businesses owned by young entrepreneurs that stimulate
their economies.
Times for blame-trading and excuses are over, our economy is
in bad shape, so our youth should not expect manna from the government, they
must hit the road and put on our thinking cap in building a life of their heart
desires. Let’s begin to initiate businesses, innovations and also engage in
volunteerism to bring about a greater future for ourselves and nation.
No comments:
Post a Comment