We now live in a world of much meaningless feel-good sloganeering.

No matter what or how serious challenges and problems are, we are made to believe that cleverly crafted slogans equate to action and remedy – even inspiration.
They sound good and blunt the urge for critical thought or question.

Modern society is increasingly descending into a sphere of superficial verbal drivel disguised as motivational inspiration or quick fix solutions.
But the rah-rah brigade’s unrealistic, boisterous nonsense needs to be critically evaluated in terms of effectiveness.

Let me be quick to point out though, that politicians – the main culprits of this malady – will be excluded from this discussion.

Too many are serial gibberish spewers for whom there is no hope of rehabilitation.
When they don’t have an answer for their incompetence and incapability of addressing pressing issues which is most of the time they rush off to the public relations people and quickly trot out a motivational slogan – or better still, give some campaign a fancy name illustrating compassion for the people.

At the coalface, nothing changes, however. This is more about the narrative there, I’ve used it, just to demonstrate I roll with the linguistic times of applying out-of-context blanket inspirational
messages to positively influence people, especially susceptible youth.

Not that there is anything wrong with trying to inspire young people to achieve and develop a good self-esteem.
They need every bit of encouragement these days to help them stay sane given the level of insincere rubbish they are constantly bombarded with from all quarters.

Unfortunately, young people often get so caught up in “yes you can” hoopla messages motivational speakers, influencers, life coaches and television shows bandy about, that many developing minds lose track of reality.

People mistakenly view perception as reality and that is why the business of feeding positive perceptions has become such a lucrative industry.

Everybody from every platform tells teens they can become anything they wish if they simply believe enough and work hard at it. Nonsense! It doesn’t work that way.

In real life, the poor hopeful who sings like a turkey with laryngitis will never win the Idols competition despite his firm belief that he is the next Freddy Mercury.

Did his family and polite friends not assure him of this? So he calls the judges cretins with the promise he’ll keep the faith, work even harder and return the next season to show
the judges the error of their ways.

And no matter how many times you tell the disadvantaged young rural boy the world is his oyster, his disadvantaged schooling and the fact that he can’t pass Grade 8 maths is a clear indication nothing will come easy for him.

So, it would be a good day if the influencers and motivational gurus keep in mind that their superficial hype should always be tempered with a dose of reality when they work with the youth.
People, young and old, have to work bloody hard if they want to achieve anything in life. To struggle and have your character tested is to be expected.