Be Happy

When I was in school, my teachers would go, “Our future is you.”

A few decades later, I find myself telling my son, “you’re the future.”

There are billboards that remind us to take care of our earth because it’s the only thing that we can give our children. A few more decades later and they will never know how it is like to bathe in a river because it was all covered up so people can put malls and business centers on it. Or what a forest looks like…because we exported all those logs to China. 

So what’s the greatest challenge facing today’s youth? I’ll give the same answer my parents told me… our problems - only greater. Deadlier viruses, higher debt, deteriorating education, dwindling natural resources.

What can they do? Nothing yet. They don’t have the resources and the knowledge. But I know what I can do… create a change in consciousness. Make them more aware of what’s happening and the solutions they can take. Let them form their own solutions and let them run with it too. 

Yep, we’re starting ‘em young. We had an animation workshop. The kind taught to college students. We taught them to kids 7 - 10 years of age. For it to become more enjoyable…we asked the parents to join in.

It was a test to see if it would be successful and what are needed. In the end, both the child and the parent enjoyed the session. While it taught EVERYONE how animation works, it fired up their imagination as to the kind of tools they had in their own computers and gave them ideas on what they can do with it.

As our youth rises up to face their own challenges, I guess our own challenge is to let them go and trust them to figure things out for themselves. 

Why do I feel that I’m just echoing what my mom would say…and what her mom said before her?