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Getting high God's way
By FRANKLIN DAHTU KOLMA
Last week John Rei of FM 100 through
the Rait PNG program met with students of Gerehu Secondary school
in NCD to discuss problems affecting young people.
From listening to the students, observing my own school mates and
my own experience, students face so many problems and challenges
today.
We find ourselves coping with broken or abusive families and
dealing with unplanned pregnancies and babies.
We also have bullying in schools, violent behavior such as bashing
up others to gain self satisfaction, swearing and name calling to
give ourselves a sense of superiority, stealing to gain status
among our peers.
Apart from these we worry about our self image, fitting in,
keeping friends, being attractive, and dealing with the everyday
situations that come our way. These problems can be quite
confusing and scary. We are caught in a sea of challenges. Many of
us are floundering.
Often, we look for ways to get our minds off these troubling
issues. We search for alternate routes and solutions to get away
from these depressing and unwanted situations.
The human brain is a wonder but the bad thing about it is that it
has a default setting that tells the body to get high when
depressed beyond normality. That is when we go around looking for
ways to get high in the hope that we can find some form of peace
and harmony with ourselves and our problematic situations.
The big thing for us as well as adults to remember is that by
getting high, we tend to forget about our primary problems. That's
one big reason why we do these things, whether we are aware of our
doing them or not.
It is clear that the problems mentioned are present in schools
around the country
Drugs and alcohol are evident in high schools and secondary
schools. It's a daily sight to see students smoking at bus stops
in their uniforms.
It is also not unusual to see students drinking alcohol in public
places such as public parks, family concerts and markets.
Bullying and peer pressure is also flourishing in schools. These
activities cause some of our classmates that are non-aggressive to
do things that they normally wouldn't do.
Victims tend to become withdrawn and afraid to come to school.
Swearing is also another problem in all schools. It lowers a
student's positive image. It also makes others who don't swear
feel bad.
Something important to note is that, our words are very powerful
and can be destructive so we should always think before we talk.
Bashing up and fighting is a very serious matter in schools. We
see it happening everywhere. A fight between two schools, two
class mates, two peer mates, between a teacher and student.
These fights usually cause physical harm and damage to school and
public property.
Stealing is rife in schools. We see a classmate carrying something
we want, we wait for him to put it down. A few minutes later he
starts asking around the classroom for it, he asks us and we stand
up and try to help him find it. Does this sound familiar? Stealing
small things eventually will lead us to steal bigger things.
A major problem is the blockading or ignoring of good advice or
general education from our parents, teachers and elders.
We have developed this "whatever" mentality makes us think we know
everything and don't want to listen to advice. We end up doing the
wrong things and getting hurt or hurting others.
It is clear that students of today are facing many challenges.
Let's try to sit down and talk with our parents or people we trust
about this.
And parents, please spend quality time with your children to find
out how they are doing.
I bet we'd be amazed to see how much better the talk will make us
about ourselves and situations.
Always remember that no matter how big, the problem, it is not
worth 'getting high' on unwanted substances.
Lets change our mind set and 'get high'in the right way, which is
God's way.
The greatest cure for any problem is God. Many of us don't have
him yet, but if we bring him into our lives, I know it will all be
better. I know because I've seen him work miracles for some
special people in my life.
God bless you and have a good weekend.
 
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