Cape Town - For Youth Day we asked first-year journalism students from the Cape Peninsula University of Technology to write for us.
Here's what Kelly Appolis has to say:
I feel that the youth’s biggest problem would be the validation that majority of us are seeking from others, which is not the way it should be.
If we take a look at social media, the content posted entails many half-naked or ridiculous videos that does not enrich the mind at all because they feel they have to obtain a certain amount of reacts to feel beautiful or funny and smart when we don’t have to.
There’s such a thing known as self-validation, one knows what goals they want to achieve in life and what they’re doing to reach them. Stop looking to others who don’t have the same views and talents as you do to be on the same page as you. You are your own unique person!
Others are only capable of making you feel a certain way and influence you in a negative way if YOU allow them to. The time is here for YOUR glow up and to express ourselves for ourselves, whether it is in our career fields or anything that we’re passionate about.
The reality is that not everyone has the same thoughts and opinions, everyone has their own uniqueness and it is our duty to embrace it
and to see the good qualities within them without looking for others validation.
Find your uniqueness and remain true to yourself. Ignore the negativity and don’t seek the validation of those who don’t matter.
* Speak up like the youth of ‘76 by tweeting your opinions and challenges to the new @GovernmentZA's Minister of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities: Minister Maite Emily Nkoana-Mashabane using #speakup76 @IOL or write to IOL at [email protected]