At first I struggle with the meaning behind this question, “What does it mean to be a young person in the gulf today?” and I wondered how different would it be from the youth of other diverse nationalities outside the gulf spectrum.
Youth is the time of life when one is young, often struggling to understand how maturity works. It’s personal experiences marked by an individual’s cultural standards and traditions. It’s that constant buzz in the ear, a constant poke on the head that demands us to fulfill our parents’ vision. A vision that ranges from occupations to martial status to “What will the people say?”
For instance, in a scenario where you have to choose a specialty after graduating high school, most parents offer two options, both of which may provide you with a luxurious lifestyle that delivers you the opportunity to be part of a higher social standing, to have a nice villa to invite some friends over. It’s either a health care professional or an engineer, like there’s no other choice, like there’s no room for odd specialties to hound. I mean what if I want to be a florist?
Or in case of marital status how reaching 25 years of age without a spouse to standby becomes the definition of desolation and pity. Really?
Being a young person in the gulf today means to take risks. It means that we have to build up the courage to express our thoughts and ideas and to view our perspective even when it doesn’t want to be heard, even when we’re not offered the platform. It means to think not twice, but probably multiple times before making your choice. The choice might still be easy to make if our society wasn’t constantly telling us that there’s only one right answer.
It’s like settling on being a fashionista, but you’re startled by the word ‘cheap’, or you’re a young male with a superb passion for food and cooking, but you’ll soon be told how feminine you look.
To be young is to be sorely, cripplingly insecure, insecurities that were planted within our heads like seeds. It’s the unceasing worry of what will the people or what will my parents say. It hassles one out that it becomes a burden, an alarming trigger of what ifs.
What if my project as a florist fails?
What if the man I fought to marry becomes trashy?
What if?
We become troubled and concerned of the impending taunt that is followed by heavy disappointments. And through it all we wonder, always wonder, what they might think of us? Good or bad?
We are grappling youngsters lost in a place that’s loyal to the circle of social, traditional, and cultural principles. But we are also fighters with verbal weapons ready to take a stand. We come to learn to fight for the person that we love, we fight for a career that comes with a package of self-content, and we fight for whatever conveys joy to us. So to be young today is to be daring, resolute, and aspiring.
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