Youth Arise: BEGIN WITH VISION

Youth Arise: BEGIN WITH VISION: The Youths of today are said to be the Leaders of tomorrow. This statement has become a cliché as its validity is contentious in this kin...

BEGIN WITH VISION

The Youths of today are said to be the Leaders of tomorrow. This statement has become a cliché as its validity is contentious in this kind of a clime where they are being daily enlisted in all manners of criminal atrocities. It is rather unfortunate that vast majority of them are still in alarming obscurity – motion without movement and picture without a future. Some are literate but not educated, some are aristocratically brought up and academically brilliant but clueless as regards the situation bedeviling the society. The youths in any nation outnumber the population of the others. Whether it is a fact or not is left for us to decide through some recent statistical research. I will rather not want to inundate you with lengthy numerical conundrum. The undeniable verity is that majority of the youth in  the streets are visionless (not a fallacy of hasty generalization). They possess no magnitude or direction. Hence, they are, rather than a blessing, a threat to the peace and desired anticipation of the society at large.

There are, of course, a few of the youths that are visionary. Those living their lives with purpose, desire, decision, determination and discipline to follow through. They are infinitesimal in number, but such are being envied, frustrated, endangered and even killed by those visionless youths who have enthusiastically embraced mediocrity in polity, philosophy and religion. It is a paramount project to start calling several of them to come to terms with the awareness of the necessity for living a life of vision and living a life indeed. A man that is yet to realize the purpose for living is dead to all that make life worthy of living. He is a dangerous man!

What is Vision? It can be described as the faculty or state of being able to see ahead. It can also be the picture of the future. According to Christopher S. Penn,  “vision is being able to see where you’re going, to see what’s up the road ahead, in both literal and figurative senses. It’s being able to see the potholes before you drive the car into them, being able to skillfully navigate”. The problem facing most of the youths, to continue the car analogy, is that most of them are driving using the rear window to navigate. They are steering based on where they have been, and maybe, just maybe they catch a glimpse out the side windows for what is happening to them right now. They don’t know where they are driving, They can’t see the sharp turn in the road ahead, and they believe that past is prologue, that biography is destiny. Most important, vision is about knowing where they are going, so that they know if they are there, and even more vital, knowing if they are off course and not any closer to our goal. Now we see why we are where we are in macroscopic society.

The Holy Writ says “Where there is no vision, people perish”. Not only the visionless will perish, the innocent visionaries will also be part by ripple effect. The events leading to the reckless extermination and destruction of numerous souls and properties being endlessly witnessed in the North lay a whole lot of credence to this. Also written in the same Holy Writ is “where there is no vision people cast of restrain”. When people don’t know where they are going, anywhere is a destination. No picture for the future, thus, there is no future. The tomorrow is more dangerous than today when the youths are without goals. Tomorrow is a death zone, when the supposed leaders of tomorrow are not responsible. Ye! Woe betides the country whose youths are only seen as social miscreants, an instrument of sanguinary engagement and political thugery.

Bill Gate had a vision and he followed it through. Now everybody is identified with him. Eliot Mark Zuckerbag, the Chairman of Facebook, actualized his vision and we all ‘facebook’ (lazing away the time). Two young guys – Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D students at Stanford University in America came up with Google Inc. They devoted their thinking and time resourcefully to be a solution to their world. A lot of us know Google, but very few know the Brains behind it. David in the Bible became a visionary as a youth. Nigeria is being relentlessly castigated by the people that are responsible for her woes. Should we flood our thought with the better way to castigate or develop ideas that will right the wrong? The vision starts with us.

Let’s ponder over it, what is the reason for living? Ask yourself, what is in me? Why am I different from others succeeding? What is the difference between the achievers and non-achievers? Nothing moves until you move. The first step is to create a vision. The next edition  will dwell pertinently on vision generation.