What is it that a youngster should aspire to be?
And how should he or she identify his or her true aspiration?
The youth today is ambitious, and the opportunities are limitless. The 21st century has opened up hundreds of new vistas for the youngsters, offering them many new and satisfying career choices. But in spite of this many a times I find them confused. As a result they go to counsellors and career consultants, who make them, go through a number of aptitude tests. But when the choices have been made by the youth about the career path they desire to tread, mostly I see them reconsidering their choices, as they feel that they have made the wrong choice. It is worth pointing out here that though many counsellors are very helpful and offer a sound advice to the students, a number of times these counsellors are nothing more than stooges or paid agents of some private institutes or universities. So the very purpose of these flashy but flimsy counselling exercises and tests is nothing more than an eye wash with the real purpose of convincing the young students to join one of the courses, offered by the institutes which have commissioned these counsellors. To further convince the gullible youngsters of the authenticity of these courses they are assured of a promising and a lucrative placement, after the completion of their courses, through the in house placement cells of these institutes. Students are all the more convinced when they find that the huge amount of fee that they have to pay to these institutes can be financed from well established and well known banks or financial institutes, which adds further credibility to these courses. So it all seems neatly laid out for them.
Their dreams are shattered and all hopes seem in vain, only when they realise that the kind of job they will actually be able to bag after finishing their studies, in these so called esteemed institutes, with huge buildings and flashy advertisements, will not even be good enough for them to enable them to pay back their study loans. Young students thus become sacrificial goats of this vicious game making them lose a few lakh rupees, and a few years of their precious youth, whereas turning the owners of these institutes in to neo rich prosperous snobs. The students are the real losers in the long run. This situation ends up in sadness and depression for the youth and sometimes even culminates in tragic suicides. Many of these misled students take to crime under intense financial pressures.
The issue is serious and the situation is alarming. The question here is what went wrong and where? The answer lies in attitudinal flaws in the minds of the students and their parents and their timely correction.
The issue is serious and the situation is alarming. The question here is what went wrong and where? The answer lies in attitudinal flaws in the minds of the students and their parents and their timely correction.
I remember a story. Once upon a time there was a monk who also was an accomplished sculptor. He wanted to teach his young students the importance of visualising, realising, seeing and perceiving clearly as to what they wanted to be, or what they wanted to accomplish in their lives. So he asked for a big stone to be brought in to the monastery and got it placed in a hall where he began to carve a statue out of that stone. Alone in a room with a large but shapeless piece of stone, he began to chisel away small chips off that stone. As was expected his young students got curious and came peeping into the hall. They saw the monk working on that stone and asked,” Master what is it that you are making?” The Master said, “I am not making any thing. There is some thing in this stone already and I am only trying to get it out.” The youngsters wondered and said,” Master, we don’t see any thing in there. It’s just a huge stone.” The master as he chiseled and chipped away at the great piece of marble said, “My dear children, I can see it. You are welcome in here only after a month now.”
After a month when the kids came in to see the stone, they were surprised to see a beautiful stone lion in the hall. They all clapped out of joy and that is when the Master spoke. What he said is very relevant for all the young people in this world. The Master said,” Dear children, we all are like a rough stone but inside we all have our unique desires, strengths, weaknesses and so on. The moment we see them clearly we can recognize the true self inside us and know what we are, a lion, a horse, a fairy or an elf. Once we can see that image clearly in our mind we just need to do the needful chiseling or some patch work here and there to turn our unchiselled selves in to beautiful people that we all are, just like this lion hidden in the rough stone.” The problem with our youth is they are not getting this kind of guidance at the right age. What the children in this story innocently observed was that their Guru had to "see" the lion before he could begin carving the statue out of the rough stone. The children in fact witnessed a vision being brought to life. The lion in that block of stone had to be released. Once he had been "seen" inside of that block of stone it was possible to "see" how to "get" him out. The critical element for any success is vision. The first thing that our parents and teachers at school level must do is, to stimulate and encourage children to visualize, and slowly reach a stage, where as youth they have a clear vision of themselves and their surroundings in light of their own strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the opportunities and threats that their environment offers.
After a month when the kids came in to see the stone, they were surprised to see a beautiful stone lion in the hall. They all clapped out of joy and that is when the Master spoke. What he said is very relevant for all the young people in this world. The Master said,” Dear children, we all are like a rough stone but inside we all have our unique desires, strengths, weaknesses and so on. The moment we see them clearly we can recognize the true self inside us and know what we are, a lion, a horse, a fairy or an elf. Once we can see that image clearly in our mind we just need to do the needful chiseling or some patch work here and there to turn our unchiselled selves in to beautiful people that we all are, just like this lion hidden in the rough stone.” The problem with our youth is they are not getting this kind of guidance at the right age. What the children in this story innocently observed was that their Guru had to "see" the lion before he could begin carving the statue out of the rough stone. The children in fact witnessed a vision being brought to life. The lion in that block of stone had to be released. Once he had been "seen" inside of that block of stone it was possible to "see" how to "get" him out. The critical element for any success is vision. The first thing that our parents and teachers at school level must do is, to stimulate and encourage children to visualize, and slowly reach a stage, where as youth they have a clear vision of themselves and their surroundings in light of their own strengths and weaknesses vis-à-vis the opportunities and threats that their environment offers.
This alone if done well and at the right time shall ensure, that the youngsters choose the professions of their true calling, and live fulfilled lives as individuals and healthy members of a healthy society.
Balwant Gurunay.
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