Being content is a valuable choice
Victoria Seiketso Sethibe | Thursday September 8, 2016 15:51
The former is an indication that one lacks the courage to move forward, even if they had initially wanted to.
How can a young person create contentment to add value in their life?
The first step in creating contentment or a fulfilling life is to have a deeper self –awareness. There is just no way anybody can have a fulfilling life without self-awareness.
Self-awareness requires a deep understanding of your own strengths, weaknesses and how best you can magnify your strengths. The next step to a fulfilling life requires a deeper awareness of the resources or opportunities within your environment.
This is then followed by using your strengths to tap optimally from the resources around you.
These may seem like obvious facts but there are still many young people out there who get so caught up complaining about things they do not have that they miss out on what they have. It can be as easy as “I could not go to place x because I did not have enough money to catch a combi. That place is two kilometres from home,” and then they get surprised when you ask “but why didn’t you walk there? After all this is a pedestrian friendly environment!” It is a basic human right to complain, but it is also important to guard against losing valuable time to being a habitual complainant.
One of the things that often hinders young people from being content is spending too much of their valuable time on social media. Improper use of social media can create unnecessary anxiety resulting from constant and unhealthy competition.
Modern day youth are growing up in an era where relationships are performance-based and that is a huge challenge for them! Low self-ratings are increasingly resulting from both online and offline social pressures. The past generations seemed to be a lot more content, thanks to low social pressures during their days. There is a Setswana saying that goes ‘ke mohumanegi yoo mabela’ which means I know I have not yet arrived but I still hold myself in high esteem because I know I am going somewhere. The social media addicts do not seem to get that. It is therefore important to learn to develop a healthy relationship with the self with the help of caretakers, of course. Self-assurance is a process that does not happen overnight.
Everybody needs a push, especially children and teenagers. Self-assurance is key to growing into a mature person. One good thing about being a mature person is that you get to ACCEPT who you are and see no issue in being different from the rest.
Self-love or self-assurance however, does not mean being so self-absorbed that you do not care about a hungry person next door. One good thing I have noticed about teenagers is that they generally love sharing; it seems like second nature to them.
Compassion, however, does not have to promote exploitation.
Slavery is more about serving some self-centred (not necessarily needy) people with the hope that God will bless you. God is not pro-slavery. He is pro-wisdom.
As the year is coming to an end, make yourself a favour by doing something that will make you look forward to the future and be proud to look back.