On the Right Path?

It’s been a new generation, indeed. Time passed by and people slowly made comparisons between the past and present generation. Some people say that the youth of past generations are way different and way better than of the present generation. But can we really compare the youth of yesterday and the youth of today? Can we still safely say that our youth today are on their right paths? We all know the famous line of our national hero, Jose P. Rizal that says “Ang kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan.” Long ago, people, especially the old ones, relied so much on the youth of their times for they believe that those children will give the future its best color. Unfortunately, today’s youth, teenagers, turned out to be the opposite of what was expected. Many teenagers have turned on the wrong roads. Youth in today’s society feel a need to be rebellious. Due to this rebelliousness, many of these teenagers and children are becoming out of school youth. Becoming out of school youth led these teenagers to engage into wrong and dangerous materials and actions. One of which was among the most common is the drugs. Evidently, aside from adults, there have already been numerous children and teenagers that have engaged into drugs. Some adults that are dealers of drugs use these children and teenagers, maybe as runners, or sometimes, they made them use the prohibited drugs. Another effect of becoming an out of school youth is joining themselves to fraternities and gangs. Nowadays, youth gangs in the Philippine society are nothing new. When we turn n the news, we often hear stories about misguided youth contributing to yet another gang related crimes. Youth gang activity is quite a predicament to our society. Lastly, misguided youth are engaging themselves into a very difficult situation, which in turn contributes to overpopulation and more out of school youth—premarital sex. These are just some effects of being an out of school youth. Some out of school youth became slaves and are being abused. But what are the factors that contribute to our youth’s rebelliousness? One of the big contributors to our youth’s rebelliousness starts with individualism. Young people feel as if they don’t need to be controlled by anyone. One reason that I can see that gave this individualistic thought among today’s youth is the irresponsibility of some parents. Some parents don’t know how to discipline their children and this led to misguidance of these youth. Another reason is poverty. Because of poverty, the parents of these youth aren’t able to give the education that they need making them out of school youth. Optimistically, there have also been teens that showed and gave hope to them and to our society. These children and teens are among those that were able to have a good and quality education. Despite the numerous cases of being an out of school youth, there are still youth that continue to give inspiration and hope to their fellow youth and to our country. Aside from that, the government is, however, also making some efforts to control and stop the continuous growth of the number of students that are becoming out of school youth. I, as a normal student, may be able to help by sharing this essay and inspire some students and youth to really live life meaningfully so that they may be able to help out society in return and make the obscure future a clear and colorful one.