Humans are aspirational beings. There’s always a next step and a win to make in our lives from the very day we gain knowledge of our needs. A child cries to be fed is just one such need. During our formative stages in life, we are under the care of parents or guardians and as such are provided for to their level best. At the same time, we get enrolled to schools where the underlying narrative is to work hard, get good grades and the world will be at your feet. Expectations raised abnormally and as such we put in the work, get the good grades and boom, when we get into the job market it’s a new reality. Nobody owes you a job and even if they did, the jobs themselves aren’t there to be dished out. We then have to find a way to make do. That’s the first interaction with reality especially when the common narrative you were given was of a great future.
With the advent of technology and the digital media, fame is being feigned in every corner of the world with a generation that’s hooked on the glamour of fame/popularity that they live in an infatuation (illusion) of being famous and everything being given to them. Unfortunately, they may not even know how to get that famous so it’s a sad dream in itself. There’s always a need to put in the work which I hope we are getting to as young people in the different circles.
Over the last three (3) years, I’ve been working on a project to nurture and support innovative concepts/projects by young people. Focus being to inject a lifeline into these especially after my graduation when I realized that most of the amazing projects we used to work on in campus were being abandoned as we had to face life. In the process, some still fail to secure jobs. On this account, as a way to contribute in a way to support my generation working with a team we decided to engage young people running varied projects in the healthcare space across the country, support them in documenting and raising the profile of their work, build capacity in them and help foster partnerships for them to be able to solve the challenges they are working on in the community while being able to meet their needs as well. My contribution in this case is non-financial and limited to technical support as well as leveraging on my networks to support these entities. Unfortunately, I was in dismay getting to realize that in all I was to offer what counted for them is financial support. Anything short of that wasn’t of much value to them. My idea is that with an ongoing project in place, my commitment to support them do it better is a worthy contribution to propel them to the next level.
In retrospect, I’m stuck wondering how best to serve a people who may not acknowledge what’s being offered to them in pursuit of immediate gratification. First, I’m not funded to execute the project, not super wealthy to be there to just dish out money in charity but sacrificing to do something for a person who may derive value for whatever they are on to. I think we need to do better and see the value of what we are getting, work on making the best of it to open gates for the next phase of development rather than focus on a solitary egocentric needs. It may be what we think we need now but may prove to be our drawback from delayed gratification & success. In reading an article this morning, I got reminded of the fact that we are in a world of “Get mine and Get out”. Whatever remains for the next person or generation is immaterial provided I’ve gotten what I wanted which isn’t sustainable in any way. We are imprisoning ourselves for the wrong reasons or so I think in expecting so much of the world while at the same time giving/doing almost nothing to earn it all.