Do the jobless know how 'jobful', they really are?

The day the educational elite will wake up and emphatically start regarding self-employment as noble, is the day the rhetoric about unemployment will end. Conversely, as long as employment still bears that connotation of having one’s name on the pay-roll, we shall remain in the status quo.

Hence a firm ideological revolution is thereby needed if we are to save the young generation from their plight. Graduates should come out of school ready for self-employment and only succumb to job hunting as a last resort.

Currently, there is sufficient empirical evidence that the private sector is driven by the less or even non-educated fellows, across the board. The elite only happen to be there as “technical employees”. This, therefore, waters down the popular argument that lack of skills is the major factor contributing to lack of job creation.

Hitherto the successful entrepreneurs emerging in the field of; agriculture, construction, manufacturing, catering, tourism, transport, education, engineering etc. are without formal training. On the other hand, graduates of technical institutes would rather find a “desk job” in any other field outside what they studied.

It can be deduced, therefore, that the “comfortable dream job” mentality with which students leave training institutes is detrimental to their career development. As an analogy, the formally educated guys master how to walk safe in the jungle which basically involves avoiding doing a number of things.

On the other hand, their non-educated counterparts instead brace for fighting tooth and nail against all odds to make the jungle safe for their free movement. That basic difference in perception already puts the two parties on opposite sides of the same coin. When lying flat, one side is always underneath!

In fact, having a good or as some people call it “comfortable” job is a result of rigorous perseverance especially when one chooses to undertake self-employment. As Dr. Alexis Carrel puts it, “man cannot remake himself without suffering for he is both the marble and the sculptor.”

Numerous people’s success stories bear this truth. Fresh graduates should hence not deceive themselves that they will simply glide into the “Omni-plenty” world. Indeed the rise to “stardom” normally comes through some form of “martyrdom” literally or at least metaphorically. One should be prepared to die for the given cause! “If a man hasn’t discovered something that he would die for, he isn’t fit to live”       Martin Luther King.

In conclusion, you can see that it is generally fear and lack of faith in themselves that is tormenting our graduates, throwing  them into despair and turning them into perpetual “asylum seekers” locally or even abroad. All they are doing, however, is running a rat race in a desperate attempt of avoiding coming face to face with their reality.

Let them do away with that attitude of looking at themselves through the hostile eyes of others! Furthermore, let them humble themselves and be ready to start from the beginning and avoid short cuts. Regarding fear, we can resonate what was stated by the former US president, F. D.Roosevelt, “the only thing we should fear is fear itself.” Nothing should erode away their confidence.

In the final analysis, I am of the view that the already abundant knowledge and skills the graduates have, should just be supplemented with a strong dose of the “do it yourself” boosters. The best therapy I recommend for this is introducing to them the SELF DISCOVERY concept. That will inevitably induce innovativeness in their mind-set and enable them make tough choices in a self-propelled pursuit of their destiny.

By Francis X. G. Luyera
Author & Self-Discovery Enthusiast
(luyerafrancis@yahoo.com)   0772457251