The challenges facing a 21st century youth are much. Depending on how or where you are looking at it. Most often when we hear about challenges facing my generation, we think of some of the things I consider mundane. They are mundane in the sense that we can do better if we can take those things that are not particularly physical more serious.
To almost everybody the things we see or know to be challenges facing a 21st century youth is something like:
1. Unemployment
2. Low standard of education
3. Ecological challenges.
4. Etc.
These are serious challenges too (am not disputing it), but they are mundane to me. Because if some of the challenges I listed bellow is taking care of – then those ones I listed above will be very insignificant. So I can say here that the challenges facing the 21st century youths are:
1. Lack of Vision
2. Lack of Direction
3. Self discovery
4. Moral challenge
5. Low Self image
6. Spiritual challenge
VISION: the ability to see. Ability to see the features of objects we look at, such as color, shape, size, details, depth, and contrast.
Vision is achieved when the eyes and brain work together to form pictures of the world around us. Vision begins with light rays bouncing off the surface of objects. These reflected light rays enter the eye and are transformed into electrical signals. Millions of signals per second leave the eye via the optic nerve and travel to the visual area of the brain. Brain cells then decode the signals into images, providing us with sight.
Most young people of today have no seeing power. Most of us can’t see, not because we don’t have eyes or because we don’t have what to look at but because we don’t want to get involved. You must know that no man living or dead would have ever made it in life without getting involved with life. People don’t see tomorrow anymore because they don’t really care about tomorrow however. The strength of any fighter is in his ability to see. People lose spiritual battle because they do not see the enemy they are fighting with. Today young people lose the battle of life because they are not ready to see what are supposed to be fighting.
Have you imagined why boxers focus on the head region while boxing with their opponent? It is because they want to hit their opponent so hard that he can’t be able to see with his eyes. By so doing he loses his focus and either surrender or gets a broken face. When the Philistines got hold of Samson the first thing they did was to remove his eyes. They knew that without eyes Samson could nothing. What about you? Are you using your eyes/ are you sure that you are seeing at all?
Because today’s youth is mentally blind, he/she sees nothing he/she can contribute to the growth of the society. We all want to live on what we can get from the government or from our parents. Please note that I am not saying that it is wrong for anyone to want his/her home-government to get him/her good job or for the parents to make their children comfortable. It good that our government takes care of us; after all that is the reason why we voted them in. However, where will they get what they will use in taking care of everybody? World economy has failed. The so called world economic powers are living in their past glory.
The only country today in this world that can actually boast of being economically vibrant is People’s Republic of China. China produces what every other country uses. Most Chinese are entrepreneurs. All the other countries where citizens are waiting for Government to employ them are passing through economic hell fire today. What are you seeing as a young person? Chinese entrepreneurs because they are men of vision, they see potentials of other countries, therefore before the citizens of that countries found out they have already exploited them.
One thing that I will always say to anyone is that “how far one can go in life is dependent on how far he/she can see.” Where you can’t see you can’t get to. It does not matter who you think you are. Today’s youths see nothing but they are full of ambitions, their ambition is 100 times more than their ideas. “Ambition with idea is nothing but sickness to the heart. “ It is only idea that can make ambition a possession.
An image, picture or concept in imagination.
The people of this generation care more about things that will not last than they care about things that will last. Tell me how can one survive the tide of life without first seeing his/her landing point in his mind’s eye? When you don’t have an image or picture of what you would want your tomorrow to look like; you may never go far in life. Tell me about that man or woman who is considered as an achiever and I will show you someone who has a vision or someone who knows where he/she sets out to go to. Former president of the United States of America, Thomas Jefferson said, “I like the dreams of the future better than the history of the past.” This is not saying that we should disregard the past not at all but it means that we should dream about the future more often. Dreaming about the future will give us a concept of what our tomorrow will look like. We are living in a world where so many people like telling stories of their past achievement or of another person’s achievement.
Young people of today live life as if living and watching movies are the same. Today’s world is full of video games, social network sites on the internet. Some live their lives as if another name for life is social network. There are so many distractions facing my generation. Therefore, vision becomes very scarce amongst us.
With vision one can actually live being less dependent on others. If you can work on yourself and improve on what you see about your future, you will find out that you can actually overcome the challenges that face today’s youths. Write out your vision, pest it where you can always see it. Also make sure that you tell it to somebody whom you respect, someone who can help you achieve your dream with his/her advice and other support he/she can be able to afford.
In talking to somebody I will like you to have this in your mind, “the distant between insanity and ingenuity is only measured by result.” I want you to take note of this because in pursuing your vision many people whom you are thinking that will support you might actually disappoint you. Some people will think that you are insane when you come up with your visions and plan. But if at the end of it you are able to hold fort, they will come up to praise you. Remember that they will only do this after seeing that the result is positive. The will tell others that they have always known it that you will turn out a genius. Therefore you must know that you are alone. Don’t get disappointed when no one supports you. Take your vision to God and allow Him to be part of your journey, as you work towards your vision.
ENJOY YOUR 2012
