Day 11, 354 to go

 



Who really is successful?


I was reading an article today about celebrities who dropped out of school. The list was quite extensive. So I started thinking. What messages are being sent to our children? Many of the celebrity college or high school drop-outs are hugely successful.
The ultimate goal for most people (though many will not admit it) is to be so financially stable that they never have to worry about how the next bill is going to be paid. We encourage our children to study hard so they can go to college and then college will lead to respectable employment. And employment will pay the bills. At the same time our children grow up watching parents who have followed this path, done all the right things and have an 'OK' life. Then they see these massively famous and wealthy celebrities who did not continue in education not having to worry about money - ever. We therefore have a new generation of young people who when asked what they want to be, answer "I want to be famous". To this generation success  equals celebrity, they are increasingly failing to see the trade-off between hard work and success.
We have to be careful that we don't loose these young minds that are increasingly getting caught up in the X-Factor, American Idol wave; minds that are being fed the myth that they too have a shot at fame and fortune and that hard (academic) work does not pay off. (Now bear in mind,college may not be for everyone).
So what do we tell them? How to we reel them back in? Well, we show them the statistics. Dropping out of school is a huge risk; the percentage of wannabe superstars that actually make it to superstardom is miniscule compared to the percentage of kids that continue with school and end up with a career that will house them, put food on the table and pay the bills. So lets weigh it up. Of the millions of celebrity hopefuls reaching for the stars approximately one percent of them make it - leaving them uneducated, unemployed and often unemployable; compared to the ninety plus percent that continue in school that end up in a career and are at least able to sustain themselves.
So yes, the dream is to be rich, wealthy, dripping with money; but the reality is -"it's probably not going to happen, so let's go with plan B - let's eat! (and have some fun along the way, with wise budgeting and self control thrown in for good measure).


 Sag olun (Goodbye) Azerbaijan, Iran