“Every day one should at least hear one little song, read one good poem, see one fine painting and — if at all possible — speak a few sensible words.”
― Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Today, our modern society faces several issues that has affected our lifestyles, our education system, our genuine concern for each other and our environment. Our values for the self and others have deteriorated over time. We live in a society where our word means nothing to anyone, not even to ourselves. At the core level, we lack a strong will to pursue our goals. We’re quite comfortable to dwell in procrastination, stay passive as thinkers, lack the courage to express ourselves or dream big and pursue what we want with grit.
In lieu of focusing first on strengthening core human development, we have grown into a society of certificate hoarders, frequently attending courses with the end goal of learning being a means to acquire yet another certificate. This pattern is rampant in mainstream schools, colleges and various workshops and training programs. We have forgotten that without a strong foundational code for living and learning, all knowledge, skills and talents that one acquires will be in vain. Our keenness to learn and be guided by our innate wisdom has been handed over to any authority figure who displays the highest degrees and the most number of certificates. It’s high time we cure ourselves of this disease.
All across the globe, young adults seem to face similar challenges: discontent and disengagement in their classes or their surroundings, less motivation to strive, embodying mediocrity, following procrastination, wandering aimlessly in life and generally find themselves in more chaos than calm. They seem to have lost the drive to learn and live joyfully and meaningfully. Most of the youngsters are aware of the fallacy of our poorly designed education systems where they consume meaningless content and prepare for purposeless educational goals. They realise that what they have learnt from their high school years (i.e. 14 years onwards) up to their late 20s, will be mostly relegated to the dust-bins. Although these young adults have been consistently besieged with information, their educational establishments haven’t seasoned them for contributing anything of value to the real world. This gap in the learning and doing causes frustration and disillusionment with the society they live in, most of all with their parents and teachers.
They have been programmed to grow up with singular notions of growth, development and success. The conventional views of what life means and what they should do “when they grow up” are but short-sighted measures that barely prepare them to face real world challenges, produce their own original thinking and develop courage to express their ideas and pursue their goals.
