What Matters
By: Krittika Chandhok
Tags: Revolution, Power, Change, Youth, India

‘You have the power to change the world’. This statement is not a generic, mumbo-jumbo of words, it is an actual representation of the fact that power is persuasive. It is the root of bringing the desired change. Voicing out opinions, standing against the wrong, speaking out one’s truth are all forms of it. Craving for power is universal. It indicates one’s individuality.

Youth is the backbone of any nation. It is a period when one is filled with unprecedented zeal, tolerance, enthusiasm and vigour. According to a paper, ninety percent of the teenagers across the globe have used social media, seventy-five percent report having at least one social media profile and fifty-one percent report using nine hours of it daily. Now counter-intuitively this sounds quite a waste of time. But is it?

Social media is not just a mere tool used for enjoyment and momentary satisfaction, it has exceeded far beyond one’s expectations. It has become an embodiment of human imagination.

Statistically generation Z has been found to be the the most avid operator of social media. Youth involvement in advocating social causes have skyrocketed with more and more of them being cognizant of the sensitivity regarding issues. The mere fact that youth contributes 1.4 billion out of 7.2 billion on the planet exhibits enough power to transfigure a major revolution. With popular social applications such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook flooding with seminars, workshops and internships organised by them speaks volumes regarding efforts to acknowledge the support.

Search the internet and you’ll find millions of ways on how to be happy and lead a stress-free life. We all seek some sort of a truism that can make our lives simple yet extraordinary. But we live in a world bound by time and space. Very familiar and amicable places retain an imperishable capacity to surprise us. You may be wandering down the street that you’ve known for years and the next thing you know, you are under hospital surveillance. Newness can explode comfort. If your heart misses a beat momentarily, things could be fatal. Trusted friends can deceive. All of this is present and real. Circumstances are sometimes unavoidable. A woman in her mid thirties could seem absolutely functioning one day, and the next day you know she could be diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety. Mental illness affects everyone, even if you yourself are not mentally ill, there may be someone in your life who is affected by it and that in turn is affecting you. Keeping this in mind, we as a society do not pay much attention to it. We typically tend to believe that if one can get through the day, all is satisfactory but that’s rarely the case. According to the World Health Organisation, a person commits suicide every forty seconds. By the time you finish reading this someone, somewhere would’ve taken their own life. The reality is we cannot control mental illness, we can only control how to support the people in need.

The youth is like a storehouse of potential energy waiting to be explored. There are numerous examples of ‘youngsters’ who have not only shown a new direction towards a seemingly unattainable goal but also broken existing chains of age-old stigmas and systematic oppression.

Jaylen Arnold, a teenager who after being bullied for having the Tourette syndrome and Aspergers went on to create the Jaylen Challenge foundation, a community that stands against bullying and understands individual differences, Gabby Frost, a 20 year old at Drexel founded a suicide prevention app called the ‘buddy project’., Amanda Southworth, 16 went on to create a software that backs up the LGBTQ+ community after being diagnosed with depression, anxiety and suicidal tendencies. These people have paved mini steps for bringing out a huge impact towards the greater hour of need. It has also been that youth hold broader definitions of gender and are likely to use gender-neutral pronouns while communicating. They are more sensitive and recognise the presence of intersectionality and mental health. In India itself, youth constitutes 65% of the total population. That’s a great amount of power if put into right usage.

We are all home sapiens, no matter how different. We react similarly to a vast range of activities. It is thus our responsibility to propagate and boost mental health not just for ourselves but the upcoming generation. That is real progress, that is what authentic power is all about and that is what really matters.