Role model or idol. Who inspires you?
Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday March 10, 2016 16:58
There was this one day when I had an interesting discussion with a group of youth, about what and who inspires each one of us.
During the discussion, Letty*, a 20-year-old who was usually heavily guarded and not particularly easy to reach out to, narrated on the life she lived while she was still following Desiree*, the reality television star she used to admire so much. Letty would rush home after school to watch the rich star on television for the entire two-hour show. This would be followed by various searches through social media to catch up with how Desiree was trending until the early hours of the morning, only to be dozing the following day at school, for the most part. What fascinated Letty the most about Desiree was the way the star always appeared to be effortlessly flawless. Letty explained how she got a rude awakening one day when she was following Desiree on social media as usual, when for the first time, she saw a discriminatory remark posted by the reality television star. Out of shock, Letty held her cellphone closer to her face and thought to herself “okay, so this is how you view other people, Desiree? From now on, you will be followed by people who look up to you and I am no longer one of them.” According to Letty, it was at that point when she overcame her obsession for Desiree and felt at her innermost peace.
It came out clearly during the discussion, that Letty discovered the following about how Desiree’s effortlessly flawless image affected her:
Letty developed a shameful feeling when she could not acquire the effortless and flawless life displayed by Desiree. From this shameful feeling, Letty developed the tendency to conceal her flaws, even in a learning environment where she needed to reveal her flaws so that they could be addressed with the necessary interventions.
Letty also developed excessive admiration for Desiree because Desiree had infinite information to share about her seemingly flawless life. It was this perfectionism that became addictive to Letty and made her to lose good quality sleep.
In turn, Letty became an inattentive learner as she developed the tendency to doze for the most part at school.
Fortunately, Letty later came to learn that this type of life only existed in a virtual world.
Gosego* on the other hand, narrated how she got influenced by the grandmother, whom she, her siblings and cousins regularly spent their childhood weekends with, while their parents were taking breaks from their parenting duties. She described her grandmother as somebody who was neat, strict, humorous and goal-oriented. A typical meal time with Gosego, her siblings, cousins and grandmother were spent at the veranda with lots of laughter from the stories they shared. At the end of the meals, the grandmother would delegate the children to clean up and pack the kitchen utensils in their rightful places.
From these memorable moments, Gosego got influenced to develop the passion and aptitude for both oral and written literature as well as acting.
Gosego learned to be neat and keep things in an organised way, a skill she displays in the way she files her records.
She also learned to set goals and follow them with patience and discipline.
From the way the grandmother delegated the grandchildren’s chores and monitored them, Gosego learned some leadership skills. In her grandmother, Gosego saw a role model who imparted some valuable skills to her, which later came in handy to survive in real life situations. A role model is described as someone admired for possessing and projecting positive qualities that have helped him or her develop or grow, personally and professionally, and that inspire others to learn from these positive qualities to succeed (Spearman, 2010). From Gosego’s story we concluded that a role model is someone you look up to and think “I can achieve that, if I give it a try.” A role model is relatable and has a motivating effect.
An idol, according to online Oxford English Dictionary, is described as anything or anybody that is being admired or revered excessively. An idol is not relatable and can appear flawless, as in Desiree’s case.
On that note, who inspires you, role model or idol? It is your choice.
*Not their real names