In working with young people what do you see as your role?

Is it about helping them to recognise and understand that it is not enough to just survive and that they should be aiming to be the best that they can be? There is something in young people that is resistant to corruption and by helping them to be true to themselves we can succeed in increasing that resistance. People seek in life what means most to them and we each define our purpose in life and live it accordingly. Our values shape our actions. Young people should be helped to be free willed and autonomous, their lives should not be just about survival and recognition but about whether their chosen path brings ultimate satisfaction.

Education is not just about preparing them to get a job but helping them to understand the whole purpose of life and how to free the mind from pressure, superstition and fear. Without this they do not reach their potential. Our role should be encourage them to do what they love doing instead of getting a job for security's sake, we need to help them to open up their minds rather than seeking conformity and the accomplishment of society's goals ending up acting like machines with predictable feelings and actions. The real purpose of education should be about helping young people to identify what they love to do. By doing what they love they are more content in their day to day lives, more enthusiastic which will lead to success.

Young people often seek celebrity, money and success, to be "someone". Our culture glorifies ambition, achievement and therefore we are always striving for some goal which offers at the best passing satisfaction before moving on to anticipated source of satisfaction. This is not an intelligent way for them to live because they will always be unhappy with the present, envious and striving....stressed! Helping young people to want less will lead them to be more content with what they have.

Ambition involves constantly living in the future but a true vocation allows young people to work in a way that is detached from the anxiety of getting results. Our culture is built upon competition but if young people do work that is meaningful to them then competition is balanced with their ability and interests. We need to encourage young people to think outside of the system to gain inner confidence. We need to help them to remain true to themselves not shaped by what is socially accepted or fashionable. Their focus should be on what is important to them and to improving the world they live in rather than limiting themselves to achieving prescriptive outcomes.

Young people can be encouraged to question existing ways of seeing and thinking and to develop a better awareness and understanding of their mind's thinking patterns. Happiness is a by product of having meaning, removing fear and lessening the distance between ourselves and others, not achievement and ambition.

Young people would also benefit from being helped to not take everything personally. Taking things personally often results in them retaliating, feeling the need to defend themselves or to prove the other person wrong. This can lead to more conflict which is often based upon assumptions rather than their seeing things are they really are. We make assumption because we do not feel comfortable not knowing. Much of the conflict they experience is created because they assume the other person sees the world in the same way that they do. One way of avoiding this is to help them to ask questions instead of making assumptions.

In our work with young people we talk about personal development by which we mean personal improvement. True personal development is about unlearning the image we have of ourselves, our mental habits and frameworks. Most of us understand our role is to help them to question their old beliefs and reactions, identifying which have caused them tension and stress. In doing so how many of us are able to show compassion rather than judgement? Are we able to help them to develop the calm and peaceful mind and avoid their energy being dispersed through unfocused thinking and action. We fill their minds with information, knowledge but for them to really know something they need to experience it first hand and this involves first emptying their cluttered minds.

It is not the situations that young people face that causes them stress but their reactions to them. They see the situation or person as either good reality or bad reality. This does not mean that we do not help them to improve their situation but in doing so we also need to help them to develop a new relationship with reality, to be happy in a way that is not externally driven. This is true happiness.