We all want to become someone important within the circles of
socialization which we find ourselves in or which we choose for ourselves yet
very few actually get to the point of realizing these aspirations.
Many young people have
dreams of becoming the best dancer, the best athlete, the best public speaker.
They all want to own a business. I do too. They all want to drive the most
beautiful of sports cars, or they just want to have enough money to last them a
lifetime at the very least.
The single problem though
- and something which separates the dreamer from the achiever - is the question
of guts and nerve. Many successful people will always tell you that 'you need
to put in the time' and "you must be willing to sacrifice a lot" -
but this hardly makes sense to a person who does not even know what to
sacrifice in the first place [You'll get someone sacrificing a goat to his gods
and still nothing happens.
We all have brilliant
ideas of what to do in order to better our lives or improve the conditions we
live in. Most of us have business ideas paralleled by none. Some of us have the
brightest ideas on how to help our communities by establishing that
non-profit-organisation we dream about. We dream of starting that youth skills
academy.
All of these are but ideas until the owner of the idea sits up and
starts doing something about it, and this is where the problems begin: Very
often you find that many young people who harbour such great ideas do not know
where to start in order to get the idea from the phase of being an idea to
where it becomes a reality.
As a result, such ideas
die in their infantry stages because the owner of the idea got stuck at a point
where a lot of work and time was supposed to have taken effect. This is due to
a range of things but, like our government, I have elected to blame the
Apartheid regime for this.
It is true that those kids who were brought up in
areas which were previously advantaged and those who were taken to such schools
and received such education, are better informed, generally, about where/how to
develop their ideas further, unlike those who received poor education.-
However, there is no Apartheid regime today.
Everyone is entitled to the same opportunities - save for the guys who are in
the rural areas, unfortunately –and therefore giving all an equal shot at realising
each of their/our dreams. But wait.
There is something which continues to hold us
back and we have given it so many names. We call it corruption, cronyism,
logic, and we call it with all sorts of names but we seem to be missing the
point. A friend of mine, a mountaineer, public speaker and extreme sportsman,
once said to me: “The reason people still go to school is that they have a
deep-conditioned fear that they will not get a job when they are older. They
don’t go to school for the same reasons that Pythagoras went for; that is
knowledge”.
He could not have been more correct. We fear
that not having formal education or formal employment we will be doomed. How
can this be true when we have a president who never really had a formal
education?
Employed young people, like myself and many
others, who have dreams of owning businesses are just as afraid. They are
afraid of what will happen to them if the business does not take off or does
not do as well as they would have envisaged. But all of this is just fear. We
fear the future. We all agree that the future is a mystery but few among us are
willing to explore the mystery and the promises and disappointments it may
present, due to the fear which ravages their very souls.
Who said if you quit your day job to start a
business you will not get that tender you so wanted? Who is to say by ditching
the classroom you won’t be able to sell the furniture you know you can make?
Who is to say by starting an NPO a young man can’t help his community the way
he always wished to? Nobody! But that fear is still there.
Let me digress a bit. I spoke about sacrifice
at the beginning of this piece. A dreamer and indeed a complete human must be
in a position to want to sacrifice 8 hours after the 8 they spend at work, to
do the work they dream will take them to the places they dream of.
One must be able to sacrifice sleep, weekend
parties, and indeed ones job. As for sacrificing school, I don’t want to be
seen as an advocate for negativity but with the education system nowadays,
school would be the first thing I sacrifice. But this is not happening, and
although most know that these are the sacrifices which need to be made, fear
clouds judgment.
A business man I’m hoping will be mentor as I
journey to this field as well once said to me and my partner. “Young people
must stay away from the FLAGE”, a new and strange concept which could not
escape my close scrutiny.
He explained it this way: F = Fear: Never
fear to do your thing. L= Lazy: We are all inherently lazy but we must push
through that. A=Anxiety: No need to be anxious about things, just relax,
prepare well and do your thing. G= Greed: You must never be greedy.
This will
land you in hot water in many ways than you can imagine. E= Envy: Do not be
envious. Envy will lead you to watching other people’s universes while your own
is dull and boring and then you will end up uthakatha because you are paranoid
that the universe is ganging up on you.
Stay away from the FLAGE.
A friend of mine who works as a journalist recently shared with me that he has moved into making films and media production. "I can not continue to live in fear. We must stop wanting to influence the outcomes of a future we are not even certain of just yet," he said.
So it is, then, that young people have all
the potential. All the energy. All the time. We just have to lose the fear
which is holding us back. Whether we like it or not, South Africa will only
work properly if the mindset of the youth also works properly.
Lose the fear, it will get you nowhere.
