Live Your Life – Today

by Sarah-Leah Pimentel · June 22, 2015

I often think that teenagers must get frustrated with us older folk when we begin conversations with them like this:

Youths at a Bosco camp in Johannesburg. Pope Francis has called on young people to �have the courage to be happy�.

Have you thought about what you�re going to do when you finish school? What would you like to become when you�re older? Have you taken the right subjects to help in your future career?

Whenever I spend time with young people�as I did recently on a youth leadership weekend�they always remind me to enjoy the moment I�m in right now, rather than worry about something that hasn�t happened yet.

I�m a typical worrier and when making a decision�about my career, my next overseas holiday, my relationships with others�I�m always thinking about what could go wrong and the steps I need to take to ensure the best outcome possible.� As a result I�m often trapped in controlling a future that hasn�t happened yet, and it robs me of the joy of the present.

Don�t get me wrong; it is good to plan for the future. Goals help us to work towards something greater and if we don�t have a backup when things don�t go according to plan, then we risk falling into places we didn�t want to be. The future is important, yes, but far more important is this moment right now and to live it fully.

This month, as we observed Youth Day and once again remembered the important role that young people played in helping us all to be free from the shackles of a system that forced us to live incomplete lives, it�s perhaps worth considering some of the characteristics of June 16 1976.

When the students of Soweto left their classrooms to march to Orlando Stadium that day, there was only one thing that drove them: they didn�t want to be educated in a language they didn�t understand. It was an issue that fell into a larger rhetoric in the battle between preserving apartheid and dismantling it.

But on that day they weren�t thinking about the release of Nelson Mandela from Robben Island, or the conditions of workers in the mines, or the liberation movement that was operating underground. They were driven by the issue that affected them directly: their access to education that was worthy of their abilities.

They knew there was an element of danger in what they were about to do, but I�m sure that very few of them thought through the consequences of that march and how it could go so horribly wrong, as it did.

Some lost their lives that day and South Africa lost the treasure of who they would grow up to become. But there were many others who, as a result of their participation that day and in the countrywide protests that followed, became aware of what was at stake and worked to bring a new country into being.

It was their enthusiasm, their fearlessness in the face of the full might of the authorities that fast-tracked the impasse between the state and the people. The adults, angered by what had happened, were infected by that raw energy that only young people know and it spurred them into action.

These characteristics can be summarised by three words: justice, ideals, enthusiasm.

All three of these qualities reside in the present. I know that without maturity and the wisdom of those who have lived a full life, these qualities can become destructive because they are not built on deep foundations. But it is good for us to remember some of what we were in our own youth and foster it in our children and grandchildren. Perhaps it�s also a reminder to find something long forgotten in ourselves.

Justice is not some wispy future goal to be achieved; it is something to be attained now. Young people want to see change now and will work to overcome the things that stand in their way.

Ideals are not the same as dreams. Dreams are about something that has not yet come to fruition and their reality is dependent on so many factors, some of which are outside our control. An ideal is the idea, the thought, the inspiration that drives youth and plays out in their words and everyday actions. It has a place in the present as they slowly build the future.

Enthusiasm is the ability to be passionate about something, it is the ability to enjoy life and live it creatively. And life is enjoyed now and not in some illusory �I�ll be happy someday� realm.

Young people who live full, enthusiastic, and happy lives now will become fulfilled adults who will appreciate the joy of living and know that all sorrows will also pass. If I delay opportunities to be happy now, I�ll never be happy, because as I grow older I will become bitter with the regret of not having lived each day to the full when I was younger.

Happiness can be found in the search for justice, the purpose of an ideal and the joy of enthusiasm, because these are God�s gifts to us when we choose life in him.

This is what St John Paul II told the youth gathered in Rome for World Youth Day in 2000 (which I attended when I was still a teenager), and which Pope Francis echoed again in his message to the world�s youth earlier this year, as urged them to �have the courage to be happy�:

�It is Jesus in fact that you seek when you dream of happiness; he is waiting for you when nothing else you find satisfies you; he is the beauty to which you are so attracted; it is he who provokes you with that thirst for fullness that will not let you settle for compromise; it is he who urges you to shed the masks of a false life; it is he who reads in your hearts your most genuine choices, the choices that others try to stifle.

�It is Jesus who stirs in you the desire to do something great with your lives, the will to follow an ideal, the refusal to allow yourselves to be grounded down by mediocrity, the courage to commit yourselves humbly and patiently to improving yourselves and society, making the world more human and more fraternal.�

To read St John Paul II�s 2000, see www.bit.ly/1Moi4uK

To read Pope Francis� 2015 message to the youth, see www.bit.ly/1CM3ExI