I am so impressed by some outstanding young men and women in our midst, that I have stopped looking at the 90’s generation with disdain.
There is a young man who washes cars where I live. He starts the job at 4am or thereabouts. By 6am, he will have washed over 10 cars and taken an early bus to town, where he has a full time job.
He asks us to pay him at the end of the month. On weekends, he cleans carpets. He usually sends me a polite reminder to pay him if by the fifth of the month I have not paid him.
And then there is the group of young people from North Eastern who are taking a 100km walk to raise awareness about the sorry state of affairs in the region, in the hope that this will restore hope and dignity to the North Eastern.
How can I forget my house assistant, a young woman who does her job with integrity and a positive attitude? For the two years we have been together, she readily does extra jobs to earn additional income.
At the end of every month, she has to send home school fees and upkeep for her child.
She is investing in farming back home, because she knows at some point, she will need to retire and continue taking care of her child. She recently asked me how one goes about investing in the stock market.
Recently, I sat through a very inspiring sermon in church, delivered by a young man. He had the enthusiasm of youth, but the wisdom of a man beyond his age.
“There may not be many role models today in our leadership, even in church, but there is the Bible. My generation and those to come after us do not have to perish for lack of knowledge…” He preached with the conviction that comes from talking from a tried and tested point of view.
You see, all these young people have the option to sit back and whine about corruption, insecurity, lack of jobs, lack of role models and a million other ills in our society.
In fact, they have the easy option - to whine on Facebook or start a blog where they will spend countless hours and bandwidth complaining about everything under the sun or blaming the government, yet offer no solutions.
Instead, they have chosen to do something better than complain. Someone has created a job for himself.
The young man I told you about takes home an average of Sh40, 000 from his side job, decent money for a young person in this city, and yet some of his peers would sneer at washing cars because it is beneath them.
This young man is the kind of man I would want my daughter to bring home as her future husband. A man like that, engrossed in worthwhile pursuits in spite of the hardship, is a man of character.
Women are wired to seek a mate who can provide for her offspring, so a man like that is very attractive to a woman.
In fact, there is nothing as off-putting as a man who whines, someone who complains about everything and blames everyone but himself for his misfortunes. Such a man is the kind that calls women gold diggers because they refuse to marry a poor man.
My friend, even if you stand to inherit millions but are lazy,
Most girls will hang around you only long enough to raise capital, but will go on and marry that Stanley who has nothing but big dreams that he is gradually actualising through dedication and hard work.
