You don't have to search far to find out that I have no hope in the future regards politics and everything that politicians and spin doctors claim to 'do for the ordinary people' (such banter). But casting aside the general election and all the politics bouncing around at the minute and I still find myself losing hope in the future.
Regardless of how much money I have or haven't had to plunge myself into debt to get an education there is a constant feeling of being aimless and unsatisfied at it all. Everybody that actually knows me sees how much heart, soul and passion I put into everything I do - especially journalism. I've done it since I was 16 if I was going to give up I think I would have stopped before I approached my 21st birthday.
But in this world to be anything at all you need a degree. I have gone through three years at two universities of doing a journalism BA to purely meet the standards and expectations of society in terms of progressing up the chain and it being just that little bit easier to get a job. The two universities are deemed the best in the field by various different ways of measuring them so in theory I should be delighted at the future ahead of me. But I aren't.
I cannot stand the constant expectations of fitting into a strange shaped box to just get anywhere in life. I just want to be free and I want to be me. This is something that so many young people feel as they are progressing through education. They want to learn about things that really interest them and excite them and to do more than just live and choose subjects and modules that give them a chance in life not a chance in happiness.
Why do we actually choose to put ourselves through this? Why do I choose to put myself through this. I just act like a sheep that chooses to follow expectations and that of everybody else in society and it really makes no sense at all. I am strong person. I have gone through enough things in my past to be able to make sensible decisions and know what is actually best for me but yet saying this is not what I have ever wanted feels like a complete failure in life.
It is things like this that causes the depression rates in young people to rise. I myself have gone through several episodes of mental health that have almost caused me to end it all. During those times I have pushed on and put any ounce of my energy into producing writing and journalism because that is what makes me happy about journalism not sitting down and learning about things I have known for years or sitting down and reading books about things that happened hundreds of years ago. But for many they cannot do what they love without getting a specific education or following a certain route first and those people become lost.
It is important for us to ensure everybody has a certain standard of knowledge and education for them to go about life understanding forms, budgeting and all those other boring life requirements. But we should also teach them things that they actually want to know and what makes them happy. Happiness may not be the foundation of success in this commonly-backward society but happiness is the foundation to life. And bringing politics into it if people are not alive, they are not in jobs and the system that political candidates focus on as being so precious quickly ceases to exist.
I accept that I am a manic depressive. I only push myself to work and succeed when I am unhappy and disillousioned but most other people aren't. Most people go through the motions of life and become nothing more than a shell.
We need more than money to be put into improving young peoples mental health services and providing them with more support. We need money to be put into the education system to provide people with a curriculum that actually excites, empowers and makes people happy. Putting money into different types of schools doesn't work because that doesn't change societies expectations of a persons progression through life. Ensuring apprenticeships are available is a start but they do not suit everybody that isn't interested in sitting in a classroom and learning about particles because they are still very limited to specific fields of work. Ensuring young people have a proper meal to help them learn only works if they are interested enough to not zone out, doodle and dream of more interesting things (everybody during life does this whatever, wherever, whenever in life). We should focus on altering societies views to say it is okay to not go and do X or to have to focus on Y until a certain age and that somebody can only be good at something after 21+ years in education and waiting for their life to actually start.
Success and happiness cannot be measured but personal satisfaction in life and aspirations for the future can be. Think of all those things we said we wanted to be as children and how few of those involved fancy letters after our names? Very few and there's a reason for that - as children we don't see why they should matter, we dream big and freely and we refuse to be chained by societies expectations and views of what makes a successful person.