Many people can relate to a time in their life when they were younger and were encouraged to play or simply given unrestricted time to play and wonder about their surroundings. 

During those times you had an option to focus your energy and attention on any activity of your choice or simply do nothing – boredom was an acceptable choice. As a person gets older the options and hours become less and the responsibilities start mounting.  In a few years you transition from a young child to a youth and all of a sudden too many things require your attention and time. Misplace your attention for too long and there could be some unfavourable consequences to pay. 

So much happens around you that require more of your attention, boredom isn’t allowed anymore, it has slowly been getting a bad reputation from those that want our attention. The youth are known for spreading their attention around and not focusing long enough on things that are considered important or useful. There is so much pressure on them from society to pay attention at all cost, attention at anything, as long as they are not bored or have free time.

You can’t sit and be bored anymore without getting your head chewed off for it. What ever happened to letting your mind and thoughts wonder wild?

Now you always have something fighting to grab your attention and fighting even harder to keep it. Some of these attention-grabbing instruments the youth bring upon themselves – nowadays you can’t sit and talk to a youth and not have them looking at their cellphone screen every ten minutes or so, whether there is a notification or not. Their attention is always under attack and they mostly seem defenceless.

Maybe it’s the way that the world and society is developing that the options are just limitless nowadays. Toys and platforms for the youth are so much that at any given time there is something worthy of your attention. You don’t have to follow the crowd or share the same interest as someone else, but you will still give up your attention to something else, you are different, but similar with everyone at the core.

It doesn’t always have to be fun or be an adventure, sometimes doing nothing is doing the most.
Appreciate your youthfulness and take some time for yourself and show some gratitude to your lack of attention.

*Olavi Popyeinawa has a diploma in Alternative Dispute Resolution and is currently studying law, LLB at the University of Namibia (Unam). He will weekly contribute this column on youth mattersInstagram: niceguy_olavi Facebook: Olavi Longfellow Twitter: @OlaviPopyeinawa