Columnist This text expresses the writer’s personal attitudes.
The holiday of national feeling is approaching. Vadmelstyngen in uncertain weather, we will soon shout Hurray. The day when we brag about our own community without restraint and point out what we want the community, the nation of Norway to really be.
But we have clouds on the horizon and challenges in running Norway as we see it and the security policy has suddenly become something more than just symbolic talk – the history of war and honors of the fallen in dry speeches probably resonate extra behind ties and shoes on 17 May these days.
Of other challenges we see: The aging wave, young unemployment and outsiders, too few adults around the children in school and kindergarten – and in other social arenas. Massive maintenance backlog in everything called infrastructure and technical public sector. And on top of this, a mandatory year for society is proposed.
ABOUT THE COLUMNIST
Name: Lene Paulsen Walderhaug
Born: 1985 in Hof.
Resident: Court.
Marital status: Married and has three children.
Profession: Psychologist at the Hospital in Vestfold, clinic for mental health and substance abuse treatment
Rough summary from mine perspective:
Advantages: Good measure for mental health for both sender and receiver, increased sense of community in society, reduced unemployment, work experience and a better basis for choosing a profession, fertile ground for solidarity and understanding of social structures, more hands for technical, social and health-related work in the public sector, better defense of the country and our values.
Objections: It can be felt as coercion. Those who eventually enter the organizations in the public sector do not have specialized knowledge and must contribute with “on-the-floor tasks”.
But then, in which one industry, is it stupid to have an extra pair of hands, an innovative head? “So stupid that there were so many of us at work today,” said no one, ever. At least not in the healthcare system, in maintenance, in school, after-school care and so on. “So stupid that I/people have experience of a year on the floor”, said no one either.
Anyway, considering duties and rights, the balance in give your duty/claim your right is completely shaky. From birth, our children and young people receive free healthcare, free schooling, advantageous student loans, as adults they enter the safety net we want to keep – giving us right, right and right. And in the middle of this, young people feel drained of meaning, isolated and without motivation, they feel “useless” and outside. Well, to an established truth in my field:
The opposite of depression is not happiness, it is meaning. And meaning is actually quite often tiring. Training to be given and empowered to bear responsibility and endure what requires something from us creates growth and mastery belief. What creates dignity is not alms, but the opportunity to contribute. I wish we could put away the mention of the mandatory year proposal as “forced” and replace it with “thank you”, possibly contribution “investments”. Young people today are concerned with the future, it is their Norway (and their world) that we are laying the foundation for today. I think their hearts know and their eyes see how important what we have in Norway is.
How good it feels not, with a straight back to sing: “We too when required”? Let’s put action behind the words and introduce general social age for 19-year-olds. A year of life as thanks for everything we have been given and everything we want to preserve – a year for the fatherland, old mother and tiny little brother.
