By Jancan Limo
I got tired closing my ears and turning blind eye to the unacceptable happenings around me. I started humming but soon failed. I opted to think about them at night when darkness wouldn’t allow me to see. It drained my sleep. Or rather it occupied the space of most important thoughts I used to have at those times. Do you know what I used to think at such hours? How tall was Jesus? Is oxygen aware that they gave it a name? What if the earth was round? And other important stuff that stole my sleep. Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp came. I thought it was going to divert my thoughts. It never helped. I still see them, I still hear them, I still feel them.
The pain that I feel when I see adverse effects that the purpose of life, the purpose of education and the state of our environment have faced is unmatched. I suffer both internally and externally. The diversion and mutilation of life’s source of happiness, the partiality that is being emphasized in our education and the degradation that our environment has gone through. Ask me and I will tell you, next to God, I will rank the fulfilment of life purpose, the role of education and the environment as the second things I worship. They are the holy trinity that safeguards our well being on the planet.
There is a lot that is happening lately. A lot of organizations that champion for some of these issues are mushrooming so fast. As I term the initiatives as good and deserving, their core intention is diverted by the need to impress the public by the visible things. Their teachings, training and concern is in making important what can be assessed and not the other way around. The important need to be assessed. I borrowed that phrase from my boss. It makes sense. What are we focusing on? Where have failed as a nation?
The biggest mistake that our culture as a country is teaching us and forcing us to do is the earnest desire to have instant gratification. We want to see the results now. We want to have it now. We want to benefit us now. We only focus on a journey of a day, a week, a month, a year or less than a decade. I am finishing campus or college, I need a job now. If I got capital, I want to start a business now, if I have a business, I need profits now! I want to be an artist, I want to trend now! I want to be famous now! Even if am approaching a lady I want her to say yes now! I don’t know what the ladies want in this matter but I guess they need it now. Now! Now!
Technology has been a boost in seeking instant gratification but we still feel empty. You want to be famous, drop a seductive photo or video online and the likes are instant. Make money online, ask me how? You force things in the throats of your friends and family. Do you want to see her? Send me photos, send me a clip. Do you want to insult someone now? Tweet, Facebook. Are you satisfied? The number of views, likes and shares will satisfy me. You got 1k. your village friend is having 3k likes. You are depressed.
We are losing a lot in return. We no longer plant trees and allow them to grow. We are taking selfies when planting trees. We no longer travel to go see friends and family. We have video calls and M-pesa. We no longer take time to look at the surprising levels of our rivers nor the state of our rivers. We are busy commercializing things and developing business canvas and pitch deck training. We are only focusing on the mean our teachers will post in their schools. We are heading nowhere with all this madness.
We need to step on emergency breaks, pull the car over and introspect. If what we are doing is for our benefit and not the benefit of the third generation from us, we are having it wrong. If we are only offering solutions to the problems that we have at hand, we are in trouble. We ought to imagine the problems that our future generations will be having and provide solutions right now. If our only focus is 2022, we are doomed as a nation. What will the future generation inherit from our great grandchildren that we initiated? We need to start investing in the future generation.
The people we are calling the youth right now are busy killing the future of the next generation. Our politicians are claiming that we need youthful leaders. Right, but it is not during your time. It is twenty, thirty, fifty years from now. Don’t rush to gratify the urgent emergent need. Don’t be in a haste to fix two-thirds gender rule right now because it is urgent. Let’s focus on frameworks that will help our future generation (great-grandchildren and beyond) to automatically adopt it even without laws or constitution.
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Let us take lead in making decisions for the generations to come. Let us imagine their problems now and innovate solutions that will ensure their survival. If we kill humanity, the moral fabric, nature and our education right now, no law or constitution will fix it for them. We are doomed and forever we will be doomed. Let us act now. Those who are busy spreading the gospel of change, the gospel of design thinking, the gospel of 21st-century skills, let us look beyond our noses. Let us think an extra mile. Let us kill our ambitions so that we can assure the future generation of a pie in living on this globe. Have a future generation-oriented mind. Won’t you?
