How we waste our youngsters’ life and careers
| Date :16-Jun-2019 |
By Vijay Phanshikar:
THE experience of most top-level organisational leaders across domains about working with youngsters offers a rather unhappy tinge. Most of them feel that despite their youth, large numbers of youngsters live on an ordinary plane of job-for-living, drag themselves to work every day, somehow finish their day’s tasks, and then head out of the workplace either back to their homes or to some places where they may find some relaxing activity to calm down their moods frayed from long hours of work. This routine does engage the young generation every day, but does not seem to offer much excitement.
The reason for this may be found in our failure to offer our young generations appropriate dreams that would fill their trinity of body, mind, and soul and provide them dreams to pursue in all excitement. Having worked in top-level positions in a large organisation like ‘The Hitavada’, I have been fortunate to work with hundreds of young people over time. Like many other top executives, I also have a similar feeling that the young people do not feel excited about the process of life. A large number of young people grow older every passing day without much excitement filling their heads and hearts. And the reason is simple: They are engaged only in a job and not in a calling.
So, their first concern is to fulfill the hours of duty and not the call of duty. That is also the reason why we find many young people with glazed eyes that do not harbour dreams. It was Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam who had talked knowingly about dreams. He had said famously that “dreams are something that one does not see in sleep; dreams are something that make one lose one’s sleep”. This dream business is being missed sorely by vast majorities of young people. And the fault lies with us, the larger society, in which the main focus of our sanskaar as well as education is to help kids garner jobs for themselves somehow. Most unfortunately, our education’s sole purpose seems to be to prepare the youngsters for jobs. So, when jobs were statedly available for engineering graduates, countless lakhs of people turned to engineering colleges for admissions. And now that those jobs have gone missing, lakhs of young people are now seeking admissions in other disciplines.
Naturally, a specific career was never their goal; job, any job, was. This has been happening all over our society for quite many years now. Nothing can be more unfortunate than this. I urge readers not to misunderstand my indulgence in talking about myself as a journalist with over half a century of career. It has been a glorious time all along with not one single day without excitement. Certainly, journalism offered me a job, though with less than moderate emoluments. But I cannot stop thanking my parents for telling me at an impressionable age, “Look son, you have a job. Now build a career. And more importantly, build an inner calling. Use the opportunity to express yourself on issues of current as well as perennial interests. Express yourself fully, unhesitantly, and courageously. Enjoy that opportunity your profession offers you”. I have always remained grateful to my terrific parents who did not want their only son to waste life in an excitementless manner.
They wanted me to explore newer possibilities to express self, write about the ills of the society, bring to fore the strengths of the people and build a positive mood. And as I began struggling to follow that golden advice, my parents advised me strongly: “Look son, you cannot express yourself capably if you do not build virtue in your language and knowledge. So, study language well and with interest, build your treasure of knowledge, keep your health in good shape, protect your mood from getting spoiled by gossip and loose talk. In other words, son, build a positive personality that would enable you to enjoy the opportunity journalism offers you”. What an advice! However, talking with my young colleagues, I realise that large numbers of them are interested only in fulfilling the hours of duty and not the call of duty. They do not see journalism as an opportunity to express; they see just as job. And this is how we have allowed our youngsters to waste their youth -- by not giving them sound advice.