I hope I don’t. I hope the points I make are still valid and stay valid.
But I know the problem that has me pre-occupied at the moment is far more
complex than I can imagine right now. I've learned so much in such a short space of time in the weeks since I started university that I know it probably won't take long for this piece to become outdated.
More learning, greater discovery might indeed make this early contribution obsolete. But it’s important to remember where we
started when we calculate how far we have come so I expect to be doing a little
reflection on that this time next year, too.
I need to get down in writing where my thoughts are now so I can hopefully look back and see how far I’ve come in the future. Maybe I’ll manage a smile instead of a wince. Maybe a ‘How quaint’ instead of a ‘How naïve’.
So bear with me. Even make excuses for me, if you’re feeling
particularly warm and generous in the future. Remember, I was doing my best
when I wrote this!
Now back to the issue that I’m grappling with. A few weeks
ago, I met a young guy. I say met, but he doesn’t exist. He was one of six
fictitious characters with different qualities, traits and issues we were given
as part of an exercise in how we regard different people in society.
They all had qualities to test our empathic responses. Some
were certainly easier to like than others.
It was an exercise in prejudice as much as anything. In
counselling, we have been told, there can be no room for judgement, no
preconceptions, no ‘verdicts’ on our clients. But this one young guy who stood
out among the six examples was testing a lot of people’s ability to be
impartial.
The subject was described as ‘a 19-year-old unemployed man
who has been on benefits for the past six months. He says that he
is fed up of the way his mother keeps going on about how he should get a job.
He says he spends much of the day in bed and that it is really the Government’s
fault that he hasn’t got a job.’
Sounds familiar to many people. It feeds into the general
conception that there are a lot of people out there like this young man who are
takers, not givers who believe everything should be handed to them on a plate,
that the world owes them a day in bed, every day.
It’s a view held by people who believe they have earned
everything they have, that they have had to graft for the nice things in life,
for the odd day in bed, which is a chance to recover from all the effort we
have put in improving our lives and contributing to society. The exact opposite
of this young man. We need a malaise in society, we need to look down on people
as wasters to increase our sense of self-importance. To make us feel better
about ourselves.
But of all the six characters we were introduced to when we
met him, this guy appealed to me the most as someone I would love to help.
For a start, I do not believe anyone wants to be a failure (you
know I hate to use that word but occasionally it gets the message across
efficiently). Nobody wants to be unsuccessful.
The first thing about him that struck me was that he wasn’t
happy spending most of time in bed arguing with his mother. There’s no joy in
his situation. Just inertia. A sense of emptiness, lack of purpose and low
self-esteem. To me, he longs to get out.
He doesn’t want to fight his mother but he can’t let her win
or his self-esteem, his sense of self-worth will be even lower than it is
already. He must blame the Government for his situation. He cannot pile any
more burden on himself. He feels enough guilt already about his situation
already.
But all he is conscious of is hearing his mother’s nagging
and hearing people – politicians, neighbours, strangers – put him down all the
time. ‘Get a job!’ ‘Get a life!’ What he really needs to get is help. And
someone to show him his true self.
Back to my core beliefs. Here’s one - we are all capable of
far more than we imagine.
No-one dies having achieved everything in life they were
meant to. Whatever age you die, whether it’s tragically young or tragically
old, it’s always tragically because everyone dies at some point on a journey
that never ends.
What we need to do is make the most of what time we are
given on that never-ending journey. To make every step count and to always move
forwards.
Sounds very grand. Now back to our young man in bed. Deep
down, he wants to be a success. Everyone does. He wants to feel better about
himself today than he did yesterday. He wants to make every step count but he
can’t bring himself to put one foot in front of the other. When we discover
what is stopping him, something even he isn’t conscious of, we can overcome it
and he’ll suddenly find his way out.
It could be his mother has been over-critical of him since
he was a child. That night be just one of several layers to peel back as we
talk. But I firmly believe once he is aware of where his lethargy comes from,
he’ll be able to get his life back … and, most importantly, on his terms.
So out of all the six characters I was introduced to, he is
the one I want to help the most. If we are more understanding of our troubled
teenagers we can save society a lot of pain, money and resentment when we try
to solve their problems in adulthood. By then they are more deep-rooted and
difficult to get at.
At this stage of my journey, it doesn’t sound naïve to me. I hope,
in a year’s time, it still doesn’t.
