The man of today is living in the age with highest technological advancement to such an extent that we are planning to colonise on Mars and Moon. However, this advancement has also given rise to depression and anxiety in adults and senior citizens due to various reasons such as inflation, climate change, pollution, health issues etc. Recently, worrisome trend has been observed in which the students in colleges or even in schools are going through depression. Such situation is very frightening and need to be tackled at the earliest.
There are number of reasons for such situation and they are intertwined with each other, further complicating the problem. Though the reasons can be categorically divided in poor, middle and rich class, majority reasons remain same with slight difference in magnitude. Improper parenting is the first cause of anxiety and depression, as children from childhood is always told to get more marks and be the top performer of the class. Competition among students begin with very tender age and increases with time. Student with highest marks is considered as abode of all good qualities such as honest, truthful, loyal, hardworking, intelligent etc. Instead, getting marks and having good qualities are two different things. Corruption is done by people sitting at highest position, which they have got after passing prestigious exams. The rat race for marks is never ending. Firstly, marks are required to get good college and then marks are required to get good job. Good job means more money and more money means more happiness as it can buy all material comforts. Later, the desire for getting marks get replaced by money. Due to this, parents also become more and more demanding, finally aims to have packages in crores. But achieving this is very hard as India has highest population of youths and thus has a cut throat competition. On the above, for achieving all these with stiff competition, resources are also not provided equally. Rich mas’s son enjoys lot of perks compared to poor man’s child. Reservation system, corruption and references further escalate the problem. The new trend of social media like Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, what’s app further eats the precious time and push the youth in dark well of ignorance. All this results in youth passing out from college having number of degrees but either no skills or semi-skilled which has no value in market. Such a person remains unemployed or under employed for a long phase of his life.
After going through all this, when child becomes adult, the long-lasting anxiety converts to frustration and anger. If this frustration remains for long time, it leads to suicide which is also increasing at an alarming rate. On the other hand, seeing progressing friends and relatives leads to lust and greed which further results in malpractices like looting, killing, trafficking etc.
Material knowledge should be bonded with spiritual knowledge from school itself. Teachings from all religion should be taught by bona fide teacher. Brotherhood, harmony, peace should be kept as top priority. Focus should be on inculcating the human qualities like kindness, generosity, obedient, punctuality, truthfulness, friendly etc. and not on marks. Students should be taught different career paths like music, dance, photography, sports, cooking and should be allowed to choose as per their interest. Government should ensure the distribution of resources equally to all students as much as possible. Dangers of using social media should be taught in schools so that students can carefully use such apps. Counselling of parents, students and teachers should be provided at regular intervals so that all can learn and help each other in dealing with anxiety and depression.
First, we need to understand the basic requirement of life, money or happiness? Can a person be happy without money? Money is not basic requirement of life, food, clothing, shelter and health is. If these things are taken care of by government or any other organization, people can be happy with less money. Material knowledge coupled with spiritual knowledge can improve the tolerance level to bear the unfavourable situations. Flexibility in choosing the career from parents and government should be encouraged. Everyone cannot earn in lakhs, but everyone can be made happy by providing these basic amnesties of life. All of us has to come together and do our part to eradicate this problem which escalating every year at an alarming rate.