Transgressions are the quintessence of youthfulness

Last evening I had quite an interesting conversation with an interesting young person whom I admire because of her achievements at such a young age, she is 25 years of age by the way. She runs her own business and has a few people working for her. She’s my role model! 

Her jargon! Lord have Mercy, consists of words like branding, projections, procurement, surplus, profits and all other technical expressions used in business. You better believe me when I say, my role model is 25 years of age! Anyway, as our conversation progressed, she shared something about  her younger sister who is ‘a piece of work’, and whom she believes is narcissistic and needy, and that she worries about her because her life seems to be a “roller-coaster ride to nowhere”. I asked if this “little monster” was the youngest member of the family, and she nodded. Suddenly, a gush of bittersweet memories engulfed me, “it’s difficult to be a young family member,” I said, “the expectations ( I sighed) can be burdensome, your older siblings become your compass, and your actions are adjudicated through theirs when they were your age.” I was not talking about her sister anymore I was on about my youth!

I don’t wish to bother you about ‘the pleasures of my youthful transgressions’ my conversation is about what it means to be young. Being young means an over obsession with life and the world. Being young means the yearning to be different and loved. If you can't find love at home you search for it everywhere, and in all the wrong places. Being young means to be a little selfish and irresponsible. I still have to see a young person whose values  are in sync with that of his/her parents! Regardless, my idea is not to bash parents and promote delinquency but to add tit-bits to what parents already know. 

The youthful mind is like a sponge, and wide-open to influences, be it positive or negative influence. Unfortunately as adults we spend most of our time condemning and preaching instead of trying to understand the pressures of their world. Somehow we forget that we were once young, and that during our youth things were different, our pressures were home-grown not global. We were not plagued as much by many deadly illnesses. We were taught to respect our elders, and today we teach our young not to talk to strangers. And there wasn't so much information (good and bad) going around. I can go on forever... Anyway, I don't really have any combative solutions about how the youth should be treated because that's not my style, but I do know though that if we keep condemning everything we will never know about what goes-on in their lives. My outlook, I shared this with "my role model" as well "don’t be an enemy, create a ‘circle of trust’,  and powers to influence, positively I must say, will be bestowed upon you, by the transgressor of course. " And the rest ... you decide!