Essay, Paragraph or Speech on “Youth is a Blunder, Manhood A Struggle And Old Age A Regret  ” Complete Essay, Speech for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Youth is a Blunder, Manhood A Struggle And Old Age A Regret  

Life is a kaleidoscopic spectacle, presenting varying aspects at various stages. To survey the progress of a person from childhood to old age is indeed very revealing. The years of childhood and boyhood are a period free from cares or earnestness: it is only in the youth that one comes to taste some of the realities of man’s existence on this globe. A youth merges into manhood, which in turn, passes into old age, life unfolds itself in many new and startling ways. There is no hiatus between one period and another, though each is distinguishable from the other in some outstanding manner.

To stand at threshold of youth is indeed thrilling. One’s physical, mental and spiritual powers are nearing maturity. It is the blossoming of life which youth confers upon man. The pulsation of energy which courses through the being of a young man is intoxicating and maddening. It is a period of growth and fulfillment, the limits of which are unknown and unknowable. A young man is conscious of ever-growing energy and enthusiasm. He is buoyant, hopeful, confident and adventurous. The world lies before him and he is full of boundless exuberance and vitality. He is eager to drink life to the last, to taste every kind of experience, to cherish the highest ambitions and aspirations. Nothing seems to be difficult or impossible or unattainable. The glory of youth lies in pitching one’s goal as high as possible and to reek nothing of the obstacles and dangers that may lie in the way of its realization. Youth is, therefore, proverbially a period of dreams and visions and ideas which, to a mature mind, often appear to be either ridiculous or absolutely impracticable.

The boundless aspirations and the apparently unattainable ideals of youth are the very essence of youth. The young man is fresh, independent, untainted with the chilling influence of mental or physical subservience, as yet free from what Wordsworth calls the shades of ‘the prison house’. A cloud of glory trails behind him and, to a certain extent, he sees the light of the divine home from where he has come. The youth has yet to fall into conventional grooves and ruts; the weight of hours has yet to chain his fiery spirit. Consequently, it is in youth that some of the most daring, and dazzling exploits are performed. In the heyday of youth, Napoleon did not pause to think of the dangers in scaling the Alps but about twenty years later he hesitated too long to order the Old Guard to charge the British, at the battle of Waterloo. The dash and initiative, the drive and confidence of youth of ten wrest victory out of the jaws of defeat, whereas caution and prudence at the crucial movement often lead to disaster and death.

Such people, however, are not lacking, who have nothing but contempt for the courage and confidence youth displays. They believe that the spirit of youth is a wine that goes to one’s head. Youth is not adventurous but reckless, not daring but thoughtless. Youth is governed by passions and emotions, untendered by the sobering influence of reason and foresight. A young man is impetuous, lives in the present, unmindful of the future. His very vitality and exuberance proves his bane. He rushes in where angels fear to tread. His unbridled sentiments and his visionary ideals land him into scrapes from which it is not easy to get out. Thus, youth sows its proverbial wild oats. A young man loves too passionately, spends too thoughtlessly, fights and quarrels too violently—in short like a being possessed with a sort of demoniac energy, he burns the candle at both ends. The story of his youth is, therefore, catalogue of lamentable blunders.

Youth is madness, an overflow of energy and enthusiasm, but it is a fine madness, a thrilling intoxication which man can ill-afford to renounce. It is true that sometimes the young man oversteps the limits of moderation and courts trouble and suffering. Unrestrained freedom and unbridled sentiment do sometimes land youth into difficulties. He kicks against the pricks and injures his shins. But to say that youth is all emotion and no reason is to fly in the face of facts. It is not every young builds airy castles. There are youths who can as well plant their feet on solid earth. Again it is not always that youth is a series of blunders: nay quite often it is the period of the most dazzling success and achievements. Nonetheless, it remains undeniable that youth is more synonymous with the spirit of daring and adventure than calculation and prudence.

To travel from youth to manhood is to witness the consummation and maturity of one’s powers, physical and mental. While as a young man, one did not know the measure of one’s growth, now he knows the limits of his development. The period of growth has reached the saturation point. The man attains his full stature and knows how tall or imposing it is. Not only this, he also acquires greater knowledge of the world and his surroundings. In youth, one would impatiently brush aside religious sanctions, social conventions, economic or political limitations, turn an iconoclast and revolutionary, all on fire with the ambition of pulling the imperfect world to pieces and building it nearer to the heart’s desire. But in manhood, even though one may not lose one’s iconoclastic zeal, one comes to know that undiluted iconoclasm does not always pay. Besides, it is not possible to break every idol and replace it with an image after one’s heart. The stern realities of life cannot be ignored. There are powerful forces against which man is often powerless. The youthful dream of conquering the world with sheer will power seems to fade. The odds are heavy and insurmountable. The struggle is bitter and prolonged and victory not within easy reach.

The fiery zeal of youth is toned down by reason and experience. One does not give up one’s ideals and aspirations, but one is less impatient and more tolerant in realizing them. Youth moves headlong like the torrent of lava, but the course of manhood can be compared to a river flowing placidly in the plains. Again, in youth there are few responsibilities and liabilities, but manhood is the period when man is saddled with various burdens. The most common of these burdens is the load of family and children. Now the baggage in the journey of life is heavy and progress consequently less swift and more arduous. On the one hand, with the passage of years, vitality and energy, after having reached the highest pitch of growth, begins to decline slowly, but on the other hand, the load of responsibilities constantly grows heavier. Man has to curb his roaring imagination, restrain his sentiments, make prudence and foresight his guide. It is thus a period when a sort of balance is struck between the impetuosity of youthful ambitions and the cold calculatory lack of enthusiasm of old age. In fact, it in manhood that one tastes the full sweetness and also the bitterness of the cup of life. Life now is neither a bed of roses nor completely strewn with thorns. It is now that man realizes the limits of human achievement as also the extent of human imperfections.

Even as the bud blossoms into a flower and finally sheds its petals and fades away, so does youth pass into manhood and then fade into old age. The last period of one’s life is a time of declining powers and energy. It is the downward process, eventually terminating in the external silence. But it is highly pessimistic creed to hold, that one fills one’s old age with nothing but regrets. A sinner, an utterly unsuccessful man, a sour, disappointed soul may perhaps review his life and find more things to rue than to be proud of. But this is not the normal conduct of old men. In fact, there are many who never grow old, though their bodies may wither and wilt. Old age is undoubtedly a physiological phenomenon, but to feel old is an attitude of mind. There are people who forever remain young in spirit, though the weight of years may force down their physical frame. The lives of many are so full and active that they have nothing to regret about their youth and manhood.

In a narrow sense, it may be said that no man is happy, for no man realizes all his aspirations. And it is in old age when the drama of his life has been almost played out that man breaks his heart over his frustrations and failures, his unfulfilled dreams and unattained ideals.