*ARE YOU A WASTED YOUTH?* Youths of today are the future of tomorrow, they say. But what will you then say when you find out that the majority of youths of today are nothing but already wasted? I have been watching the behavior of our Kenyan youths on T.V during this campaigning season and I feel sorry for the Kenyan youths. There’s fire on the mountain. Something needs to be done to arrest this astronomical increase in the number of wasted youths we are witnessing in our present day. But first, before we do that, we need to identify who these wasted youths are. *Warning:* Please, I want to beg you. What I will share with you here in the article will be like bitter leaves for your body though it`s very good for your health, it will be bitter in your mouth especially if you are a youth or a parent of a youth. So, how do you identify a wasted youth? Well, a wasted youth... *Readily follows bandwagon* This is probably because following bandwagon is easier. A wasted youth is incapable of having original thought or opinion of his own so you don’t expect him to do anything else except follow popular opinion—even ridiculously insane opinions! Has no idea of his or her purpose in life. A wasted youth has no plans for his future. He would rather rely on what his parents, friends, employers, pastors, cult leaders, politicians, etc., tells him will favor him. But do you really blame him? Because a wasted youth has no purpose for life, he is bound to be a confused being. And who is the easiest person to push around if not a confused person! *Hardly reads* In fact, he/she does not read. This is one of the easiest ways to spot a wasted youth. Apart from reading his Facebook, Instagram or twitter updates and maybe his school textbooks, that is where his reading stops. Financial books, Personal growth books, journals, business idea and advice articles, even current affairs is not really his thing. Of course, he will proudly and openly tell you he doesn’t have time for any of that! Listen to this. If you are suspecting any youth in your vicinity to be a wasted youth, just ask him or her to tell you the last financial or personal growth book he actually read and when he read it. Don’t be surprised to find out that some of them have not read any literature in the past ten years! Now tell me, how will such a person’s mind grow or develop!? *Thinks certificate is education* A wasted youth will never fail to remind you that he or she is educated and has a certificate. He will be quick to tell you that he is a first class honors, a 2.1, a 2.2, a master’s degree holder e.t.c. And I’m like, and so? Anyone can get a certificate these days. Coupled with the fact that there are so many degree awarding tertiary institutions these days spread everywhere across the country. In our today’s evolving world, your certificate doesn’t count for much nowadays. What I want you to know and start pondering upon is this: what can I do with the knowledge this certificate I am holding represents. *Prefers having a job to having a career or owning a business* Tell a wasted youth you started your own business, he/she will tell you congrats in a very lukewarm manner. But tell him/her you finally got that job, and watch as he/she will exclaim and rejoice for you! The job mentality of most of our wasted youths can be killing at times. It doesn’t even matter to them the nature of the job or whether you will be fulfilling your career goals in that very job or not. As long as you tell him/her that you will receive a salary at the end of the month, they will rejoice. *Is very vain* Yes, vain as in primarily concerned with things like sex, fashion, football, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok... You know you won’t catch his interest by talking about good financial books. Try talking about sex and he will suddenly come alive. We see it every day on social media. Make an intelligent post or ask an intellectually stimulating question on social media. It will just be as if most of these wasted youths will see it but just jump and pass. Someone is talking about a business book or a business idea; only few people respond. But now, let’s make the topic to be something related to sex. Oh yeah! Now you are talking! Come see traffic! Come see responses... These youths are so interested in knowing who is having sex with who, which celeb is 'doing' another celeb, which celeb is sharing her nude image on Instagram, the latest sex positions or styles, the latest sex scandals, etc. Funny isn’t it? A wasted youth is a confused youth! But it’s not only sex that easily catches his/her attention. For some of them, they like talking about money but not in the sense a reasonable person will talk about it. Truth is that a wasted youth will like to discuss about how much football stars, movie icons and music stars are making. He will waste time to calculate for you the worth of most of these stars, or how much their jewels, mansions and cars all cost. Some wasted youths even take it too far by going into drugs. Isn’t it amazing the number of our youths—both males and females—who are now into smoking bhang and drinking alcohol these days? That will show you the level of ‘wasted-ness’ engulfing our society today. *Knows next to nothing about business* Yes. A wasted youth is bereft of business ideas. If you think this is a lie, just challenge any youth around you that you suspect to be wasted to give you just one business idea. Most likely, he or she will go into defense and start telling you that we all cannot be entrepreneurs. But I laugh. Yes, we all cannot be entrepreneurs. But who’s even talking about being an entrepreneur here? I asked you to just give me one... any business idea. The wasted youth got it all wrong. This is because when you are talking about business to the wasted youth, his wasted mind is already thinking about the rich billionaires in Kenya and in the world. That’s what business means to him. Now, who will help me tell a wasted youth that business is simply all about solving people’s problems and providing services that will take care of peoples’ needs? *Keeps company of equally wasted friends.* Who are your friends? How do you motivate each other? What kind of discussions are you guys having most of the time? There is a theory that you are the average of five people you are mostly in contact with. This theory is in line with the popular law of averages. So who are your friends again? How do you guys add to each other person’s lives? Can you now see why you have remained wasted simply because a typical wasted youth is always in the company of his equally wasted friends. And the result? Of course, what else if not more and more “wasted-ness”! *Finally* Young, energetic, curious and restless are just some of the adjectives used to describe youths. Remember, you won’t be a youth forever. Soon you will be having a large family and serious responsibilities to take care of. Did you know that a shilling invested in your 20s is worth much more than one invested in your 40s? Why not start investing today when you still have an opportunity. *Written By:* The Director of The Sly School of Business and Computing and the next Senator Kakamega County Mike Sly Makotsi Khayeka 0714593986