Lessons from the East V: Three Tact to Transmogrify Youth

Youth, who represent the future, who represent power, and who determine the direction in which a country is progressing are in a state of quandary, perplexity, and dilemma.

NewsBharati    31-Aug-2022 10:00:29 AM   
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“The best brains of the nation may be found on the last benches of the classroom.”

These were the famous words from the late former President of India, Shri Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam.

Youth, who represent the future, who represent power, and who determine the direction in which a country is progressing are in a state of quandary, perplexity, and dilemma.

Why do I say so?
 
Born in the tech world, smartphones in every hand, selfies since birth, connected with the global environment more than ever in the prior history, information overload like no time ever in the past, attention span reducing faster than fashion is the world that exists for the Youth of today.
 
Lessons from the East V: Three Tact to Transmogrify Youth

All that has been encapsulated above is accompanied by the rising, ever-rising need for gratification leading to mammoth challenges for humanity but more so for Youth who possess an unfathomable quantum of raw energy.

Below is an attempt (3As) to sum up such issues impacting Youth and the causes behind them.

1. Anger – Low on patience, prejudiced by Infosphere (the cloud or the bubble of information one lives in), mismatch in expectations & outcome - from events, people, and self.

2. Anxiety – Drive to succeed quickly - forgetting, that the life span created by Universe for every human is ~ 120 years, achieving things fast shortens it,
Copying & comparison - rather than being the best version of oneself, preferring to be an inferior copy of someone else,
Broken backing up mechanism - limited support system in the scary world - having many friends but most with benefits.

3. Acceptance – The youth of today believes that all outcomes can be controlled, blinding oneself to the fact that, any event having a positive outcome from one’s perception is not only about perseverance or efforts, but also involves unsaid contribution of timing, the existence of a harmonious eco-system as well as a bit or lots of providential luck.

Thus when one fails, one finds excuses in the eco-system or surroundings and when one wins, one contributes directly to one's efforts.

Youth also have a greater need to be part of the cool group or gang or smart, popular cohort to fit in, else in one's mind, a sense of higher self-esteem or self-belief gets shattered.

This need to fit in leads to changing one’s original self or nature and pursuing a path that is different from one’s roots or core leading to sometimes substance abuse, sometimes violence, and more often mood swings.

Where there are problems, there lie the solutions, when one witness hostility, one initiates the process of Self-approval leading to confidence, when one faces a higher degree of opposition, one’s ability to maneuver as well as survival instincts multiply.

The worst brings the best in oneself.

But bringing this best in oneself needs dedication, devotion to the cause, and pursuing the path towards - the ultimate objective relentlessly.

To make the journey smoother, 3 simple tacts that can transmogrify oneself can be summed up as:

1. Collaborate or Collapse: One believes that one is a lone wolf, lone warrior, or lone soldier. There is never such a need to put an incomprehensible amount of pressure on oneself. There is an alternate & a better way out.

When something awry happens to someone, wronged by an individual or by society, there are two choices – Surrender or go by the side of wrong OR rise and find the confidence to fight back.

One who decides to fight back pulls oneself out of the atrocity, gathers confidence, and realizes that it's not only him or her that has been wronged but many others have been the victim of the same challenge posed by an individual or by society.

Hence the idea,

Can this Individuals' Power be converted into Institutional Power?

Collecting, bringing individuals' (who have been wronged, oppressed, sharing a common cause) together, and organizing them can convert raw energy into a gush of force that can lead to change as well as overthrowing the Oppressor.

Lost ---------- Learn ---------Lead --------Organize-------Bring Change

2. 00.1 % Rule: Setbacks, disappointments, Defeats are part of life. They have to come, they will come, and they will shake one up. What happens next?

Discipline or Despondency?

There can be two outcomes after failure. One gives up and shifts to something else, something easy, something chewable.

Second, feel bad, gather all the motivation within and from outside, rise, and make a plan to conquer back.

But the Journey is arduous. 99.9% give up and get back into the flow of life. Some give up early some later. Only 0.1% decide, to toil, take pain as the price for success and pursue.

The sequence from Failure to Success looks like this-

Day One: Huge motivation, extra effort.

Day Two: Distractions have already started gathering in and discomfort is huge. Pain from 1st-day day practice or efforts pushes oneself to re-think why, and thought emerges - Just let it be. Not everyone is cut out for this.

Day Three: Practice turns into excuses, self-preservation, and mental tricks to chicken out. To accompany this, pressure always exists from society to make one quit, such that the ill and failure continues.

The only way out of this is by showing up even when one is beaten down in the body, broken down in spirit, yet one got to maintain discipline. The only thing that brings a change in this world is consistency and Consistency can only be achieved by Discipline.

Motivation is Short-lived, Discipline is Long-lived. Motivation is needed at the time of fall to rise again. Discipline is needed to get -going.

When discipline turns into a habit, the execution just gets easier, and then the wrong slowly and gradually can be turned or changed into the right.

70% don’t even try building a beautiful excuse for themselves, they simply give up and get in the flow of day-to-day existence.

20% give up after a day, 6% within a week, 2.5% in two weeks, 1% after habits get formed in 21 days, as their priorities change, and 0.4% just can’t pursue the rigor of consistency.

The 0.1% pursue and they win.

3. Need to Fit in OR Fit into the Need

There is a long queue where everyone wishes to be like someone else.

Being part of that elite group, that hip group, that cool group, that intellectual group, that sports group, etc, etc, etc.
As a teen or as a youth, one believes one’s existence, one’s perception to the external world, one's face to the outside is the group one belongs to and that’s how one is tagged as.

What if one acquires a multitude of skills and a variety of techniques as well as numerous competencies?

Where and when there is a problem, when someone needs assistance, when one is looking for a helping hand, can one approach and extends one's services, or can one present one's graciousness?

If one does not have the ability or skill to solve the situation, then what?

One learns and learns in a manner that not only can solve the problem at hand but learnings to remain for life.

Anyways once one helps someone, one’s memory is etched with that event and remains of such event’s nuances.

That’s how one develops not skills, but acts of assistance, aid and help turns Skills into Life Skills and Success Skills.

Thus Siddhartha Rastogi says, Youth is coarse energy, who are ignorant about their powers.

Educate them, they will become good citizens of the country, Coach them, they will move the mountains, lead them such that they realize their capabilities, they will create a new happier Equanimous world.


Connect with the Author at Twitter: @beingsworld

(The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official view or position of any company or sister concerns or Group Company where the Author is presently employed.)




Siddhartha Rastogi

Siddhartha Rastogi is Managing Director & Chief Operating Officer of a Leading Full Service Investment Bank. Views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official view or position of any company or sister concerns or group company where the author is presently employed.