The paradox of life: Young self Vs Old self (A Bad leader’s struggle and advice to the youth.)
Leaders are some of the most influential people in modern day society, it is important that as we look into the world and we see negatives we must understand how it came to be that we find ourselves in this situation in which the vast majority of youth feel disengaged and feel betrayed by their leaders and the leaders feel as if the youth are lazy and that they are just in a radical phase of their lives. These essay speaks about the following:
- The paradox of leaders: How they change from young idealists to all old bureaucrats and why it is so.
- A summary of bad leadership
- A word of advice to the youth to always keep in mind as they aspire to be leaders
The Paradox of leaders
Most of them begin with good intentions. Try to do something noble, acquire wealth enough for the sustenance of your family and future generations. They set these goals and gradually they near their goals with some hard work and a little bit of luck they reach them and sometimes surpass the ultimate goal they had set for their lives. Thats where the problem starts as human beings we get caught up in the fame, wealth, success and the appearance of a good life. The dream is now no longer innocent. Its in our biology — every time we reach our goals or hear praise our brain releases little shots of dopamine which is a feel good drug that is highly addictive.
As the rapid growth phase they had been experiencing after what had seemed like an eternity of stagnation ends, the graph begins to plateau they get greedy forgetting the things they used to stand for as their younger selves. All they wanted at one point in their youth was a foot in the door know they are to greedy so they start shutting doors for others so they can forcefully take what does not belong to them because the feeling of gain and power is intoxicating and reminds them about how it feels to being young and on top of the world. As a younger person they said they would never be like “them” — “they are greedy and selfish” they said but somewhere along the line the perspective changed the knowledge of youth was replaced by the wisdom of old, the idealism of youth was replaced with the cynicism of old and the optimism of youth was replaced with pessimism of old. As time went on a change happened little by little until eventually they woke up and realised just how foreign the thoughts they once had as younger people of idealism have become. Perhaps the naivety of youth is just that there is nothing more to it then just hope and with age comes the realisation that the world will never be perfect and as the door of death draws near and the breath of energy leaves them all they can do is hold on to the things that remind them of their youth which is growth whether it be through money, status or power we all want to believe at any age and any status that tomorrow is better then today we essentially never want to peak and it is with this realisation that we can understand that greed is a form of regret that hails from the lack of fulfilment from life as they try to suppress the younger child who they know would disappointed with what they have become.
Bad Leaders: The youthful vigour to change the world is all but dead
As history has it we have had a number of leaders who started off as good leaders with idealistic visions who had good intentions but over time they became bad leaders and became hated by the very people who once adored them. Leaders of modern history have become masters of the appearance of stoicism and being of the people but in truth are of epicureanism and are concerned with only their own selves.
Advice to the next generation of leaders
It seems as if the odds are stacked against us, let us not be prideful in our lives, let us strive for knowledge, let us never forget what we started on our paths, let us remain with the values we began with. Keep the innocence of your dream let us from the failures of those that travelled the road before us, let us never fall where many have fallen. There is still good in every heart let us start a new revolution, let us rectify the status quo, let us not conform to what we see around us but build a world were non-conformity is conformity.
