Bad habits have lasting effects

IT is disturbing to see students getting into harmful habits early in life.
It is common to see school children, even those in lower primary school, picking up cigarettes and betel nuts on their way to school in the morning.
They line up at roadside markets along with working class people to chew betel nut and smoke cigarette before and after school.
Later they walk into their classrooms with betel nut stains and the smell of nicotine on their uniforms.
Any responsible parent who cares about the future and wellbeing of their children ought to do something about it now rather than later.
Some time back, it was only the high school students who couldn’t fight the urge to secretly smoke or chew betelnut without their parents or teachers knowing it.
These days, primary school students are spending their lunch money on smoking cigarette and chewing betelnut.
We know how harmful and addictive substances such as betel nut and tobacco are.
And if these children start taking them in their early teens, imagine the kind of damage that would cause their health even before they hit middle age.
It is not only their health that is concern.
They have started habits that will cost them financially.
They may grow up into productive adults that are hooked to habits that compete with needs such as nutritious food for their money.
For some years, betelnut has been used as a common consumer item to measure the cost of living.
Has anyone wondered how betelnut has actually benefited the consumer? We know that only the trader makes his money out of an addictive pastime.
The same can be said of other habit forming substances that have been mistaken as part of life.
The future of any society is in its children and youth.
When we see children grow and accomplish things in life in areas such as sports, academia, business and church work, it gives the older generation pleasure and a sense of having achieved something.
Their investment in the young generation is bearing good fruit when this happens.
Young people give their parents’ generation meaning for their labour and accomplishments today.
The fruits of each generation’s labour is enjoyed by the next who in turn work for those after them.
Individual families have their own and legacies to live up to and inheritances to pass on.
And as a nation-family, we also have legacies to be mindful of and inheritances to enjoy.
We have inherited the past from the colonial masters and our founding fathers who saw a future and fought hard for it.
In the past, leaders have spelt out their own visions for the future but all of which resonate with the guiding principles in the preamble of the constitution.
It is the responsibility of each successive generation from the founding years to never lose sight of those principles but to live by them and enable the following generations to do likewise.
Primary and secondary school students of today need to be taught such principles so they do not begin their life journey recklessly by engaging in harmful habits that would stand in their way to excellence.
Cigarette and betel nut consumption might be trivial matters to some but they can have tremendous impact on one’s finances, health and even career prospects now and into the future.