The urge to break free

As per the Psychologist, in this modern age, children are not brought up peacefully.  They are under pressure to deliver at school and also for competitive examinations.  The fact is that the educational system in India has not served its purposes [though reforms of the educational system were announced]. 

Basically, our educational system is based on memorisation, more than the application of information, knowledge and personal development.  After they reach the age of young adulthood, it is quite obvious in the family no one cares/gives them any advice about the significance of life. Furthermore, there is a strong negative correlation between national average suicide rates and measures of life satisfaction.

De facto, growing up is more stressful today than it was ever before.  Even if child scores high marks are not happy because in the next class parents’ expectations will be high and thus onus would be on the child to perform better and this fear slowly and gradually creeping up leads to dangerous steps.

The pertinent question is being unable to express emotions, putting on a façade of sociability and living in a life that is more pretension than reality, has alienated us from the world and made us a prisoner of our own dreams.

Though a 24-hour hotline called ‘Operation Hope’ was set up for students to cope up with exams earlier and they did receive almost 2000 calls, out of which 500 came from teenagers with suicidal tendencies.  A six-year-old girl, howling over the phone shared the experience was a bitter one, she felt neglected ever since she joined her new school since all her classmates seemed to look down on her inability to converse in English and thus leading to her frustration.

The fear factor is not scoring well enough to match parents’ expectations and thus the tragic things happened, in those cases parents’ should come forward when the children needed it most. 

When we are talking about an urban working woman, it is to be noted that even for them to balance both household activities and the job as well also lead result in low spirits.  In the workplace, they have to cope with the other sex to do better, be noticed and appreciated.

During the last few years, the number of suicide cases has gone up.  The rigid patterns of family formation are an important factor that pushes many youngsters to kill themselves.  Now, it is of utmost importance to give counselling to the parents and leaders to think and grapple with the ideals of individual freedom and choice.  While we are pursuing a global capitalist economy with underlying vigour, this is one aspect cannot shy away from.

In this modern era, at a certain point of time, we as a human being do experience the feelings of loneliness, distress, helplessness and hopelessness.  The death of a family member, the break-up of a relationship, blows to our self-esteem, feeling of worthlessness, major financial setbacks are serious problems that all of us may have to face at some point of time in our lives.  

Each and every person has his/her own emotion and because this emotional makeup is unique, each of us tend to respond to the situation differently.

It is necessary that whatever the crisis one is going through, be evaluated from his/her perspective.  What may seem of minor importance to someone else and insignificant may be distressful to another.