A luxury lifestyle is not an end in itself
Widdecombe
JEREMY CLARKSON sends a message to any students who might be disappointed with their A-level results: “Don’t worry, I got a C and two Us and I am on a superyacht in the Med.” The spirit behind the message is a good one so it may be rather churlish of me to demur but I worry about the definition of success that now guides the young. On a superyacht? So what? Since when was a luxurious lifestyle in itself a measurement of success?
Whenever I find myself on a platform of a school speech day I also try to motivate the disappointed, the ones who were pipped at the post for a prize, who have failed a predicted grade, who haven’t been appointed head boy or head girl, who have had to put up with their third choice of university. My examples, however, are rather different.
I point to Churchill whose poor performance at school was legendary and to John Major who left school with just three O-levels. Yet both these men became prime minister.
When I talk about the importance of overcoming rather than being intimidated by obstacles I use the examples of Beethoven, who composed while deaf, Milton, who wrote descriptive verse while blind, and Professor Stephen Hawking, who bestrides the world with his brilliance despite having no movement below the neck.
There are so many achievements with which we should be inspiring children yet there is now a thirst for fame for its own sake and of course money. In one school I visited a group of girls told me they wanted to be celebrities. Celebrated for what? I asked one girl if she would consider her life better spent as glamour model Jordan (now Katie Price) or as Mother Theresa and she gave me a wholly honest reply, acknowledging that she should yearn to serve others as had Mother Theresa but that she would much rather be Jordan.
Most of us would like to cruise the Med on a superyacht but as a break from the real purpose of our lives not as an aim in its own right. So two cheers for Jeremy Clarkson.