Depression, anxiety, boredom and stress seem to be the unfortunate companions of the modern- day youth. Coupled with the uncertainties of the pandemic, these emotions may even drift the youth along the paths of hopelessness and pointlessness in life. This is where the ancient words of wisdom find their meaning in letting us know that there is abundance in the field of the poor but it is laid waste by injustice (Proverbs 13:23). It is a feeling of being in the heart of the ocean yet dying of thirst or having so much yet enjoying little.
So what can be done to cultivate and harvest your field of youthfulness? It is actually the same that can be done to get yourself from feeling stuck and uninspired into the flow of life. Maybe the findings of Csikszentmihalyi (whom I will conveniently refer to as DR. C) can give us some insight.
DR. C and his research team set out with an objective, that is to find the underlying factors that contribute to restlessness, fatigue, irritability, insomnia and lack of concentration in the population. These were days where these symptoms were entirely linked with Mental disorders. But DR. C discovered otherwise. He devised a very clever experiment in which he made the participants record all their fun activities (activities they performed not because they were obliged to but for the mere reason that they enjoyed them). The next thing he did was to give a very simple but as we’ll discover later, monstrous instruction.
He instructed them not to perform these activities from the time they woke up till 9pm throughout the duration of the study.
However, the experiment had to be promptly stopped not because it was a failure, but because it was an overwhelming success. Even at the end of the first day, the participants were reported to have experienced increased sluggishness and headaches. With time, some were reported to have exhibited suicidal tendencies. Drawing a few conclusions from this study I’ll like to recommend these easy steps to get yourself from the low into the flow:
- Create a list of activities you enjoy doing. These may not be activities you are obliged to perform but you find them as a nice way of passing the time.
- Create a list of activities that you are obliged to perform. For these activities, there are usually consequences and even punishments for failing to perform them.
- The first list gives you what makes you thrive and the second, what makes you survive. Living is a balance of both, surviving and thriving.
- Whenever you are immersed in a survival activity and you feel overwhelmed, stressed and bored, it is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve been on the surviving end for far too long and that it is time to thrive. Go in for the thriving activities!
- The wonder about this is that the thriving activities fuel your creativity and motivation to excel in the survival activities.
Most importantly, know the source of hope- Jesus. With Him, you just cannot go wrong!
This is an excerpt from the first issue of Adrenaline, a contemporary youth magazine. Download the full magazine for free using the link below
Restpiration 