Are parents still teaching their wards about contentment these days? Do young people of this century know that contentment is a virtue? According to Wikipedia, “Contentment is a mental or emotional state of satisfaction maybe drawn from being at ease in one’s situation, body and mind. Colloquially speaking, contentment could be a state of having accepted one’s situatfreeion and is a milder and more tentative form of
happiness.” Stay with me, we are heading somewhere. Most Nigerian youths today have no regards for patience and contentment, everyone seems to be in a hurry to achieve big things and amass wealth, disregarding the need to undergo the proper processes that birth these things. Hence the increase in crime rate and the endemic rise of depression and suicide.
The emergence of social media wealth and surgically acquired body flaunting celebrities, have also contributed immensely to the growing pressure on most youths today. The society tends to disregard anyone who can’t afford the latest car, Gucci or a cosmetic backside, making such persons feel like underachievers. People no longer care about the dignity our forefathers said is in labour, you are only dignified in people’s eyes when your bank account is full and running over. Your vices too get easily overlooked because you are successful, while using a stricter weighing scale for the poor and struggling. I’ve also seen and heard cases of parents forbidding their daughters from marrying unsuccessful young men, in one way or the other these young men end up getting frustrated and throwing in the towel. These societal pressures are the key factors in the rise of depression and suicide in Nigeria. There’s a need to drive into people’s head that we all don’t have the same timeline, and each and every person has his own track. We can only truly achieve contentment when we stop looking at our inadequacies and become more thankful for what we do have. Lack of contentment is already doing damage to the Nigerian image especially through international cyber crime, so it is high time we begin to teach our young people how to embrace themselves and what they have. Teach them to understand that there is truly dignity in labour. I live you with a quote by Emmanuel Kant on contentment, “We are not rich by what we possess but by what we can do without”.
Rapzino 