They dreamed of an absence of six years; In search of a fortune to make through investment and self-employment, away from home and school, but the journey of the two Jordanian teenagers ended following several days when the security authorities found them in the capital, Amman.
It seemed that the lives of the two teenage friends, Ayham Al-Omari and Rashid Al-Sobh, were going according to the aspirations of their families.
Al-Omari adds that his son is distinguished by his intelligence and popularity among his family, but which of them, who recently began to neglect his studies, told his father one day that school grades are just numbers on paper that have no meaning, and that their ceiling is an employee governed by poverty, and this is a new discourse on the Al-Omari family, as the father says.
book “Rich dad and poor dad“
This new discourse, which was adopted by the two friends, Ayham and Rashid, they explained in a four-page handwritten letter in Arabic that reflects the seriousness of the two students. The note left by the two teenagers for their families states that they have read a book titled “Rich Dad, Poor Dad,” written by American author Robert Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Letcher.
The two friends, Ayham and Rashid, explain that they studied the book for forty days and discovered that traditional education makes poor employees, and that the global scientific system wastes people’s capabilities and turns them into poor employees, and that whoever wants to understand the nature of money and investment must learn that outside the walls of schools and universities.
Hence, the two friends left their homes and school, intending to be absent for six years, on the journey of making wealth that will be a “servant” for them, and not the other way around, as the letter says.
This book was written by the American writer of Japanese origin Robert Kiyosaki in collaboration with Sharon L. Letcher. In the book that achieved wide international circulation, Kiyosaki tells the story of his childhood between the advice of his struggling, educated father, whom he called “the poor father”, and the father of his friend Mike, a businessman who did not finish His school education but he was one of the wealthiest Hawaiians and called him “rich dad”.
The writer tries to explain his most important rule, “assets and liabilities,” and to demolish many of the prevailing beliefs regarding money and its nature, and the lack of the need for the classical educational system to reach wealth.
The book, which was published regarding a quarter of a century ago, describes the economic and social conditions in which Robert Kiyosaki lived in the United States of America, through which he was able to form his vision and wealth.
Rejection of reality and love of adventure
The social researcher, Prof. Dr. Hussein Al-Khuzaie, says that what most distinguishes this young age group from today’s youth is the rejection of reality, the love of adventure, the proof of manhood, and the eagerness to change for the better.
He adds that the era of speed does not allow young people to wait like their parents and grandparents, but rather seek to achieve their goals immediately and without the time constraints imposed by education, work and monthly salary.
Al-Khuzai believes that these two young men may have been tempted following reading this book, but without taking into account the differences between the Jordanian and American societies.
Al-Khuzaie says that the economic reality and the spread of poverty and unemployment today are among the things that prevent young people from obtaining wealth, or even establishing a personal project.
Al-Khuzaie confirms that regarding 50 percent of Jordanian youth suffer from “hopeless unemployment,” referring to those who have spent two years or more without work, and adds that the economic condition is an important factor in what he called “forced expulsion.”
He says that Arab youth have a high sense of belonging to his family, but today he lives as a stranger inside his country, and even within his family. Due to pressures, economic conditions, unemployment, and the erosion of the middle class, in addition to the promotion of some films or books for extremely rich entrepreneurial models, and the fullness of cyberspace with celebrities with “ideal lives”, which motivates the deprivation of the family from the intimacy of its children and pushes young people to rebel once morest their rigid reality.
Two ‘more aware’ teens
Fidaa Abu al-Khair, assistant professor at Al-Ahliyya Amman University in Clinical Psychology, says that she looks at them and Rashid at their mental age, not chronological, and believes that they are “more aware” than their peers, due to the way they wrote the letter and their presence in schools designated for the outstanding.
She adds to that that the world today has become broader, which means that education is not confined to the family, not even schools that need to reconsider their system as a whole, but this mental openness has two sides: positive and negative, and here comes the role of guidance and follow-up.
She points out that adolescents are affected by negative models, whether from celebrities or entrepreneurs, who made easy, fast, and huge money, which confines children’s thinking to private projects that they see as an easy path to wealth.
However, Abu Al-Khair confirms that the models of wealthy people who succeeded because of an idea are numbered on the fingers of the hand, and that many entrepreneurs suffer from high rates of depression, while the focus is not on the models that struggled, succeeded, enriched themselves with their scientific degrees and made great contributions to science and the world.
The importance of communication channels
Abu Al-Khair adds that the existence of an open channel of communication between children, families, schools, and universities is essential to reduce the gap with this generation, listen to it, and exploit its abilities and tendencies positively, so that its energy is not exploited behaviorally and socially in a negative way.
She also believes that the responsibility of communicating with children is shared, and it starts from the family, educational and pioneering institutions, the media, publishing and writing houses, and all the way to all segments of society.
She says that the authoritarian family model characterized by strictness and excessive control leads to many problems, the most important of which is the feeling of failure and low self-esteem. his family in the future.
How did the teens’ journey end?
The imam of a mosque in the Jordanian capital, Amman, said he saw the two teenagers, Ayham and Rashid, and informed the security authorities of their whereregardings out of duty to the worried families.
A temporary state of anxiety ended well, but who knows, perhaps the roots of societal transformations in the future may raise a longer-term concern.