fifteen. For the Youth.

I became overwhelmed a few Wednesdays ago at the Bangkok BTS waiting for the next train into the city. This feeling started rising in my belly when I noticed a young mother dragging her little boy by the hand across the platform. She was yelling at him to hurry up! I thought…how unfair of a request that was for him since his legs were so little and he was already running behind the hand of his mother as fast as he could. He was trying his best. When he couldn’t keep up- she stopped, knelt down and yelled at him once again explaining in a condescending tone that her life was too busy for this, to busy to be waiting for him.

Soon we were standing next to each other in line. He caught my eyes looking at him and I knelt down and smiled. I wanted to wrap my arms around him and somehow silently explain to him that seem adults take out their feelings on kids often, and if he could remember that his mom’s annoyance probably and most often will have nothing to do with him- his life will be easier. He gave into the suggestion of a high five, but his blushed cheeks and small little ears never gave into a smile- presumably from the fact that he was still recovering from the unfair reprimand.

I found myself in that train a few minutes later entranced in this idea of society/adults dragging and pulling our youth of all ages through life at unfair pace and for unfair reasons. We are pulling them in so many directions that think their minds must be spinning. When do they find time to think, to reflect, to push-back, to cry, to create. All the “yelling” adults are doing must drown out their own voices- the ones that come from within that are especially quite in our early stages.

If you would allow me to suggest it, I think we are dragging youht through these cold cement classrooms with dull, un-engaging and often untruthful curriculum with over-worked teachers who could care less about the holistic internal development of their students. Instead, test scores matter more from information that will be forgotten as soon as the red pen marks scribble judgment on their paper. Some of these children will go home to parents who are dragging them to this soccer practice and that recital so that they can full fill the unlived dreams of their own child hoods or create an image for themselves in superficial communities of “perfect families”.  Many youth are dragged to go to the colleges that have been decided for them with outdated careers that refuse to move with the new millennium.  During college these youth will ultimately be pulled into debt that now accounts to over 1 trillion dollars (exceeding credit card debt in the USA by millions).

Furthermore, the adults/society of this world are dragging youth through the false ideas of happiness. We convince youth that real happiness only comes in the shape of hard work, which requires great sacrifice, instead of accepting the new reality that taking risks and finding work  you love work that requires you to show up everyday with your whole heart- is how you reach it.

And we continue to drag youth through a series of NO’s that become the standard answers to their suggestions and requests if it does not fit our own. We make excuses for this behavior and say we want them to be more ______________________________ (fill in the blank here). It is for their own good we say.

I see it everywhere.

Part of what I do in this life is offer up the idea that young people are inherently problem solvers who have this beautiful gift to develop who they are by engaging with us and teaching us too in the institutions we have made for them. It seems that on a large scale, I am failing.

I got off the train and was standing in a new line for the next one. Around me were huge TV screens hanging from the glass buildings with constant flashing ads of ways to improve this outer shell we live in for now.

I became very aware of the messages that never stopped (these TV’s are on 24/7) and every ad for the next three minutes of my existence sent the messages to follow: If you wear this, you will be happier.

If you get rid of those stretch marks you will be more beautiful, then more happy.

If you can add chemicals to your skin to make it more white (a core advertisement in South East Asia that makes me really hurt for that culture, and not so proud od my own) you will be happy.

If you get rid of wrinkles around your eyes, you will be loved, and happy. (Aren’t wrinkles from laughing anyway?)

I feel like we are dooming youth for unhappiness. We are insisting upon it aren’t we?

We are dragging youth through all of these requirements they never agreed to and doing an arguably poor job at making those learning institutions a place of self-discovery and empowerment. Almost every environment that our youth travel to seems to be telling them another contradictory message- asking them to be different then what they are.

We are saying they are not good enough aren’t we?

That is quite simply what it boils down too.

The worst part: we are doing this to kids who are developing!!!! We are allowing it. We contribute every time we turn on the TV for them, instead of asking them how their day was, including them in cooking dinner or providing blank sheets of paper for them to illustrate their own TV shows!

 We do this every time we exclude them from conversations assuming they couldn’t possibly understand. We do this when we exclude them from decisions that affect them. We do this every time we argue and use our unearned power as a tool to make us right about everything instead of guiding them to see that the idea of being “right” is something that will always be a grey area. It’s important instead to find what is right for you as a unique individual- a being that matters in this world because of that inherent uniqueness.

Overwhelmed I feel again.

Let me say it again. Take a deep breath and listen to me….. please.

May I suggest that we are setting youth up for failure much more often then we are setting them for success.

How do we stop this you ask? It’s deeper then you think, I think. Adults need to start becoming more actualized in their own beings. With that comes grace and tolerance for others and their paths. I think it comes down to building inclusive communities that are focused of course on the important diversities that come with skin color, language and culture, but also age.

We are teachers.

All of us.

What we are teaching youth in implicit messages every second is to change who they are, and not bother us with the stories and dreams of their mind and hearts. This makes them feel like they are not valuable and then after that- what have we done? What foundation have we laid for them to create a better world? I can’t help but to think we must feel this way as an entire race and this cycle is long standing.

Drop-out rates, drug-use statistics, prescription medications to solve deep rooted pain, eating disorders, domestic violence and the rate of girls who enter into them, pregnancy because of lack of love, STD’s because we weren’t worth wearing a condom, and most overwhelming for me, people all around us who feel like suicide is a better option, every message we send is manifesting in a clear way all around us. We aren’t listening.

Every choice we make will have an effect. I am strong believer that there is not such thing as “cause no harm.” We are connected simply because we are.  Consequently, we are organically always causing, creating, and affecting something. It’s the beauty of life, the uncertainty of it all. It seems that the easiest thing to cause is harm since it requires no attention to others and far less effort.

Maybe the problem is that we have given up on a world we dream of. My dream is that next time I walk into that subway, I will see a young mother enjoying the walk with her son as he explores the wonder of the elevator. In my dream subway that mother will be un-rushed and valuing the time they have together before he soon reaches the age where he will not want her help any longer. Maybe instead, she picks him up and hugs him extra hard on the way to the train instead of reminding him that he is a burden to her at times.

The billboards in my dream subway will be full of stories of people (young and old) accomplishing uniqueness unapologetically. It will be colorful celebrations of what life actually is. It will celebrate our bodies. It will celebrate our successes, and if you will allow me to push a little farther: It will boldly celebrate the successes of collaboration and the people who have demonstrated the great courage it takes to fail early, often, and sometimes fail again until we get it right to create sustainable change.

I think we can get there tomorrow if we all tried. I am still working on how to make something this important for everyone all at once! Maybe saying everything takes lots of time is a cop-out. Maybe 

it's not.

For today, I am asking you to at least stop dragging our youth, and start standing beside them in all of our un-aged humanness. Maybe we will like what they have to say, and maybe the pace they are walking at is a better one for our world.