THIS statement by the legendary entrepreneur Elon Musk sums up most issues that confront the young people of today. In most interactions with young people -- say in their teens and twenties -- the realisation emerges all on its own that good numbers of young people actually have no idea about what they wished to do in life or wish to be in life. Another impression from such interactions is that the young people carry in their heads and hearts certain blankness with which they stare at an uncertain future in which they do not know their own role. The loud-thinker has often come away from meeting with young people with an impression that most youth paint for themselves a picture of being ordinary, caparisoned by their own limitations, castrated with realities and vagaries of harsh life -- which they must fight with terribly limited resources. Or, in other words, good numbers of young people tend to limit the picture of their own selves into narrow confines of their so-called moderate or less than moderate resources. Possibly, such young people find comfort in the definition of their own limited resources or equipment and spend lives in uneasy contemplation of glory that would never be theirs. In still other words, such young people have lots of high aspirations, all right, but have no inspiration to stretch themselves beyond their assumed limitations. But as they remained marooned in their own limitations, such young people suffer also from absence of properly calibrated and appropriately buttressed ambitions.

 

They want to do well in life, quite naturally, but have no equipment or skills or qualities to achieve those goals. Inwardly, they realise this limitation, and therefore keep staring blankly at an uncertain future. The loosefooter feels an extreme sympathy for such youth -- with a pathetic mindset. He realises that young people have to endure such conditions because since their childhood, they have nobody in their lives to subject them to higher and finer thinking about themselves. Some elders in the family or teachers in schools and colleges may have fed them on some unrealistic dreams, all right, without making any systematic efforts to instill in the young people a seriousness to pursue high ambition, or, in other words, ignite their minds (to pick up the word used by Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam in the title of a book). That is obviously the reason why countless lakhs of young people in the Indian society are ‘unemployable’ by even common standards.

 

Through their education from start to finish, not much efforts are made to help the younger generations to pick up proper skill-sets. Nor are most young people are introduced to what is termed as people-skills as part of a conscious development of their emotional quotient (EQ). Assailed by such limitations -- some natural and many assumed -- countless numbers of young people find themselves becoming victims of serious anxieties about their future. Not only do they not have the skill to forge ahead but also not the will to do so. It is only natural, then, that such young people have no idea what future holds for them in store. When such conditions persist, the young people start suffering spiritually -- which reflects in certain blankness in their eyes -- which can be sensed from their overall persona.

 

 

1. Start noting positive dimensions of personality as well as the negative ones -- so that efforts could be made consciously to eliminate the negatives and enhance the positives.

2. Start painting a realistic picture of yourself.

3. Start reading books that highlight the ways various great personalities adopted to fulfill their respective ambitions. Remember that reading of books and newspapers is a great habit from which every great person has benefitted.

4. Start seeing conscious dreams of your high achievements, and subsequently work for those.

5. Start developing your own, independent thought-processes so that you have a fair idea of what you are capable of achieving. If you follow some other people’s definitions, your own ambitions will never get formed properly. Going back to what Elon Musk has said, it is possible for ordinary people to choose to be extraordinary, it must be said that ambition, thus, begins with yourself and within yourself -- and not anywhere else. If this is understood well, then there is no need feel anxieties about future.