Old geezer

"Youth is not a time of life; it is a state of mind; it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees; it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigour of the emotions; it is the freshness of the deep springs of life." Samuel Ullman

When I began university, I thought that the most important change in global issues came from the physically young. It makes sense, the youth are the future of our world, so why wouldn't their contribution be more important?

And to an extent, I was right. The most important change IS from today's youth. But youth has a very different meaning to what I originally thought.

These are people within my life, that I consider leaders of change in global challenges. Some are from organisations such as Rosies, a mission that works with the homeless. Others lead in smaller ways, such as the education of others on Indigenous Australian rights. 

All are of different ages. All are making a difference. And all of them are youthful. How can this be, you may say? Youthfulness is not dependent on age, rather it is dependent on attitude, (Landone 1988).

The old geezer- someone who is unnecessarily critical of new things and approaches problems with anger and frustration.
The young one- someone who is open to creating and receiving new ideas, and approaches problems with vigour and optimism.

When we are facing a challenge, we can come at it with two different attitudes. We can either be the old geezer, unwilling to listen, or we can be the young one, open to new things. Successful leadership is making sure the young one wins out against our inner old geezer.

"Let your passion drive your approach to leadership." Yap Soo Huey

By embracing our inner youthfulness we are letting passion drive our actions. People are attracted to this enthusiasm and will be drawn to us and the global challenge we want to overcome.

Our actions affect the people we are bringing with us on this journey towards change, and so the youthful and passion driven approach is important. If they seem disinterested we should take a step back and consider our own attitude. (Shankman, Allen, Haber-Curran 2015)

The reason their disinterest may be because we seem disinterested and are letting the old geezer win. By being excited and interested in what we are working towards, we encourage others to feel the same, (Bennis 2000).

Think about it, when you see someone who is enthusiastic and happy, it's hard not to feel the same way. Passion and positivity is contagious, and embracing our youthfulness helps us spread this to those we are leading towards change.

To get a real understanding of how youthfulness influences our ability to solve global challenges lets take a look at an example.

The United Nations contains leaders from many countries that create resolutions they agree to follow in order to help solve global challenges.

In Libya in 2011, the then current leader, Colonel Ghaddafi, began large scale systematic killing of those against his regime. In order to stop this the United Nations needed to consider R2P, responsibility to protect. This document outlines the responsibility of a country's government and the international community to protect the citizens of that country. These ideas are fairly new in terms of dealing with unjust killing and are highly contested.

In using this new idea, the United Nations had to fight with their inner old geezers who were telling them to stick with the status quo and use old policy and ideas. They didn't let the old geezer win, and intervention in Libya was allowed to occur, to stop these killings.

There is also a smaller division in the United Nations that is present in Australia called the United Nations Youth Australia.

Last year when the G20 was held in Australia, they held a Global Development Summit. Here young Australians had the opportunity to learn about economic prosperity, and could contribute their ideas on what the G20 should focus discussions on. After the summit, the organisation compiled a letter with all of the ideas discussed and sent it to the G20 talks where it was used to help guide their approach to the challenges of economic prosperity.

This initiative took advantage of the young Australians who had embraced their inner youthfulness and hence had passion and energy when looking at these issues.

We can see the United Nations knows being youthful is about your attitude, and that having a youthful attitude can mean the difference between success and failure.

When you walk away today, take this with you;
Youthfulness= attitude + passion NOT AGE
You can be a 'young one' or and 'old geezer'.

And last but not least...

Don't let the old geezer win.

References:
Text:
Landone, B 1988, Beginning Youth, Society of Metaphysicians, United States
Shankman, M, Allen, S & Haber-Curan, P 2008, Emotionally Intelligent Leadership, Jossey-Bass, San Francisco
Bennis, W 2000, Managing the Dream: Reflections on Leadership and Change, Perseus Publishing, New York
Video:
United Nations 2011, UN urges Libyan authorities to respect freedoms, ensure protection of civilians, online video, viewed May 26 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w1C0BBfzxKc
UN Youth Australia, Global Development Summit - Your G20, online video, viewed May 26 2015, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0wIB2MTGog