It is not easy being young. Ever. It is harder today, however, than ever before. The primary reason for this is an innate awareness that the planet we are on is in a critical state. There is a pervading sense of doom hovering over the long-term future of the humans on Earth, i.e. the youth understand that because of the way this world currently chooses to work, there won’t be any humans in the future. It is challenging finding the motivation to repair a damaged world when you have the knowledge that you are speeding towards your own extinction, because people prioritise living their lives – having their ‘moment’ – and that takes time and focus away from fixing the problems they can fix. It is important to live life and fix it as you go.
Perhaps the biggest challenge facing today’s youth is the choice of what to do with their lives. There is the ever-pressing concern about earning enough to be able to live the life you are promised in every advert, every magazine. Without money, we are taught, what are we? This fact of reality discourages people from daring to follow their hearts and occupy their lives with what they love to do. Because a person in this society needs to earn to live a reasonable life, a ‘safe’ life, people are choosing careers that will make them rich and safe, rather than fulfilled and pushing at their highest potential. One is fulfilled when one does work with its own intrinsic value and gets paid to do so. One pushes at one’s highest potential when one is challenged in one’s field of expertise. I am sure more of the youth need to be shown that the careers that currently exist are not the only careers there can ever be. The youth must create their own career options. They can do that by each developing their unique strengths and dreaming of a healed world.
I would hazard a guess that the youth of 2014 are not impressed with the state of the planet. Whatever they are not told by the media, whatever propaganda is shoved in their faces, whichever lies they grow up with, they know the truth of the matter. They feel the planet’s plight. Their childhoods are short and from day one, they are generally bent to conforming to a deformed social ideal. Therein lies the problem that if resolved effectively, will change the entire outlook for this planet’s future.
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C.J. Birch
C.J. Birch 