Cause of Frustration Among The Indian Youth

T et us, first of all, analyze what is meant by the word frustration L Frustration is a deep feeling of defeat that makes a home in minds of an individual. Why is this feeling in the young ones when they are expected to be bubbling with enthusiasm and the like? Youth is always the storehouse of energy, enthusiasm and has an inbuilt fire of action burning within them. If this inbuilt fire for activity is not channelized in the proper direction, the same fire can burn the very essence of a living community — the youth.

Aspirations and desires are always the hallmark of the young, which always existed and still exist among the young. This is because they have not seen the world and have their own imaginations about the world and life in it. They have all sorts of ideas of what life should offer to them. This is not at all wrong and nothing peculiar to the young of today. This has always been and is today, and will be tomorrow. If it is nothing so new then why the never-before-heard frustrations among the young. It is now time to retrospect and ponder over the latest genesis of these frustrations among the youth. The very seeds of these frustrations I feel are sown in early childhood days by the parents themselves, though unknowingly. Quite unwittingly, the way the parents bring up the children, it is imminent that frustration has to be the natural concomitant of the training period of the child. Almost all the parent’s partners make children feel that the world is for them and they have not much to do for the world in return. This in itself is enough to give a setback to the child, even as he just enters adolescence. The world makes him realize very soon that it is he who is to do something in the world and that he is irrelevant to the world if he does nothing for it. This is a rude shock to the young mind. For till now, he had been brought up to believe that he will get everything from the world but just opposite is the truth for the world does not care for anyone unless he is something in the world and for the world. In early childhood, it has been seen that the parents dote so much on the child that he naturally starts believing that, he can get anything just here for. When this proves to be untrue, he is shocked out of his wits and loses balance patience.

It is this training of the child in his early days of childhood that prepares the ground for his unhappiness and frustrations in youth. The feeling that he can get anything he first deserves becomes a nightmare for him when he grows a little and realizes the bitter truth that, little does the world care for anyone and that he is not getting all that he wants or demands. At this point in time, his parents and his mentors also start demanding from him and leave all that doting. This is an additional shock for the young mind.

To give a finishing touch to his home training come the very latest and modern modes of entertainment, the television and the cinema. The glamour seen on these screens makes the still immature child feel that this is real life. This again is bound to discourage his mind to get fulfill his expectations from life. Oh! What a crash of his hopes when facts of living standards shatter all his dreams of glamorous adulthood. This is because, what he sees on the screens by way of riches, lifestyle, love, and the like, which he just does not get in real life, his frustrations and disappointments take a hold of him.

Besides the glamour, what adds to his already shattered aspirations is the violence he observes on the screen. He sees that one person the hero fights away and wins dozens of adversaries. This gives the young mind an idea that, for one, if you are strong you can win, no matter how many adversaries. He also starts believing that violence is a means to an end. Once he is so convinced, he tries it at the first opportunity and he ends up all bashed up and bruised, and even in jail. This gives him a big shock. He is utterly confused and does not understand what the world and life really are. All this together gives the young child enough cause to be disheartened, disappointed, and frustrated with what life really is. This happens because what he had seen on the television and the big screen is nowhere near what he gets, but he has seen others with it, and he himself had also been brought up with the desire for all that he sees. Now, how can this ever end up in a harmonious outlook on life? It is the collection of all these peculiar circumstances enveloping the modem child and youth that are causing frustration in him.

It is an important matter of a very large magnitude that calls for immediate thought and action. Why did the youth of the previous time, say the previous generation not feel these pangs? For one thing perhaps, children were never before pampered as they are today. They almost always get whatever they want, or ask for. This makes them automatically get used to getting all just for the asking. However, this never gets translated in real life. This yawning gap between aspiration and realities is too large for them to bear. In the previous generations, the youth were taught to stay within their means and the means of the family, so they grew up with the art of sacrificing and not getting what they wanted. This is what made them fit to face life as it really is, sometimes kind, and generous, and sometimes very unkind. From the very beginning, they knew that they will not get whatever they want, but what their elders deem fit or what the elders could afford. Besides this, earlier the children were taught to get their targets after working towards it. This is also a quality very difficult to imbibe in the children of today because they see all around them elders resorting to every means to achieve their ends.

Thus the causes of frustration in the modern youth lie within their style of bringing up. The training imparted to them in general, is one of hit and run, snatch your choice, and be done with it. If we teach them this, we cannot expect a better return. We must be satisfied with the end product of disgruntled youth. If at all we really want to put an end to this wave of frustration among the youth, we must bring them up with full knowledge of what real life is. The less they expect of it, the happier they will be. It is not that they should not have ambitions or not do well, but this will prepare them for every failure that life may have to offer.

If the young are brought with a correct perspective of life, they will know how to face discontent without committing suicide or taking to drugs.