Greatest Challenges Facing our Generation

Being a part of the youth of this generation, as are almost all those present here, I have experienced the impact of a lot of obstacles which have hampered the generation in a lot of ways but have also had a small number of benefits to society. There have also been others which have had absolutely no positive impact on society but have acted as dilemmas from the time they have appeared. The obstacles in the way of mankind have had a sudden boost in the past Century. They have materialized over a long period of time and have been cultivated in the hearts of man. In my opinion I would state these brutes to be technology, crime, corruption, the importance of money, and the human values of anger, pride, envy and greed. I am going to discuss about just a couple of them at length as I feel them more important compared to the rest. The first of the hindrances I would like to address is one which we exercise in almost all of the tasks we carry out: Technology.

The rate at which technology is pulling this world and its people is flabbergasting. Mobile phones, laptops, and all of the time-saving machines have sure worked to increase industrial productivity but have also worked against humanity by decreasing the inventive and memory skills of humans. People in the current world have ceased to remembering phone numbers and addresses, as the storage systems and memory capacities of the laptops and mobile phones are colossal and they promise to last long compared to the “fragile human brain”. I would like to ask all those present here a simple and easy question - How many of us remember their home numbers to the last digit? The presumable answer for the teens and even the elders is no. The simple explanation to this is the fact of the presence of mobile phones in each and every hand. We feel that these objects have helped our world speed through a lag phase faster, but is that so? Aren’t these metal bodies impairing the human brain and slowing it down to infinitesimal levels?

I think so and this is the precise justification I find worthy of bestowing technology in its current state.

Pace. Speed. The words defining the advancement of life in today’s world. Racing around bends at high-speeds, the vehicle of today’s generation does not wait for anyone, falling off at the bends or getting yanked away by the vacuums of emptiness left behind by this high-pressure vehicle of today’s life. Exceptionally high levels of stress due to work have infiltrated into the lives of people and are hollowing out the satisfaction which used to be the earlier incentive to work. Satisfaction being replaced by money has had a gargantuan effect on the pinwheels of life. Being turned at the hands of the wealthy compared to the brainy has had its toll on all the cars of life being turned by that giant pinwheel.

Increasing suicides, heart attacks and other stress disorders depict that in the simplest form available. Witnessed in age groups all over the population curves, this disorder is immune to all sorts of treatments. Ordering life to move faster, the importance of money is one hurdle which will take a really long time to clear, all thanks to the other demons it has brought out which shackle the progress of mankind progressively. Progress during the 1970’s was reaching the moon, but that “giant leap for mankind” has turned into the “small step for man” if I may quote Neil Armstrong.

One of the devils brought out by money is crime. Seen and experienced at various times and in various places, this demon has transformed into the right-hand man of money. Its roots rising right out of the foundation of wealth, this evil sprite has inflicted serious damage to the factory of life and has handicapped it to magnanimous altitudes. There has also come a certain point of time, when this sprite has reproduced to give smaller but fast-emerging strains of itself in the name of terrorism, cyber-crime when coupled with technology, and scams along with corruption. These beasts have surfaced at numerous places in this world, one among them being my own country India, which has tried its best to control and harness this beast back. But can mankind control them? Is it so easy to manipulate the conspirators? The answer given is the best reason why they are put across as destroyers.

(One of the most surprising nominations for the award of the most damaging barrier is nature. I take the silent whispers to be those of shock. Yes, that’s what it is. Giving to man one of the most dangerous and destructive weapons is nature itself. Drugs, radio-active materials, and the virtual divides between nations are all derived from this entity we call nature. Addicting people to itself, drugs have been known to cause more than 36000 deaths in the single year of 2008. But are these virtual emotions caused by drugs expressed genuinely from the hearts of man? Killing for and by this form of nature is clearly appalling!)

Natural boundaries created by nature are an international issue which is a touchy subject but the other more damaging subject is resultant from the radio-active materials. Made into weapons and also used for electricity, these reactive materials are highly-destructive. Causing wars and other environmental and political disasters, these materials may be a sign of the ending world. Chernobyl, the twin blasts during the World War, and the problem at the Fukushima plant of Japan have had so large an effect on the people of the place that all of the countries involved have repented the doomed decisions. All of this has been made possible with the provisions of nature, and that makes us realize the real capabilities of nature, at least some parts of it.

These thoughts which I have presented and evaluated are my own. They may be different for anyone and everyone present here. Freedom of thought is the legislator sitting at the head of the table during this discussion and it proclaims itself to say that there is nothing wrong in people thinking in their own way and not being manipulated or coaxed into submission by the various fallacies of this world.

But the point to be thought out the most is the plan of action to be used in combating these evils plaguing our current generation and most probably the next upcoming generations as well. And for taking successful action to shape our future into a favorable environment for the following generations, we need to join our hands and form a congregation of believers to plan of ridding the world of these malevolent monsters. Whatever caste, creed, color, gender or age. We need to link up together and help ourselves and our future.

That’s all I have to say. I hope you felt my views significant enough to be presented to you at this honorable contest. I thank you all profusely for listening keenly to my ideas and spending your valuable time to sit through my speech. Thank you.