（Translator’s Note)
The following is a partial excerpt translation of an article posted on March 7, 2014, from the vast amount of RAPT blog posts. For the original source, please refer to the following URL link.
(Translated text below)
Each human being has great value.
I am not just talking nicely; in fact, every human being has great value.
However, just as a diamond, no matter how expensive, is worth nothing in its raw state.
So too a human being must be polished and sharpened in order to show his or her true value.
In the past, many people were treated like slaves by some powerful people and used as objects or tools.
However, with the development of civilization, each individual began to discover his or her own potential.
Instead of working like a robot under someone else’s orders, they began to think for themselves and find a way of life that suited their individuality.
However, even if society as a whole has changed in this way, if each individual does not live in this way with self-awareness, he or she will still have to live as a slave in some cases.
We will have no choice but to live our lives like robots who are at someone else’s mercy and can only do as they are told.
To live without dreams and hopes for the future is, after all, no different from living like a robot in this way.
In an era when people were paid a lot of money and could get whatever they wanted, almost no one was aware that they were living like slaves, even if they worked for someone else.
However, as the economy cools, salaries decrease, and it becomes more difficult to get what one wants no matter how hard one works, it becomes harder and harder to work for someone else, and the feeling of being forced to work becomes stronger, and one is forced to realize that one is like a slave.
I believe that they are becoming increasingly aware that they are being forced to work, as if they are slaves.
However, very few baby boomers feel this way, and in fact, many of them feel that their work itself is worthwhile.
They are happy to have a job and feel that their lives are worth living.
I run a company, so I employ several people, and when the baby boomers are given a job, they are very happy to do it.
But the younger people are never so happy.
They always look uncomfortable with jobs they don’t want to do, no matter how much they are assigned to them.
It is often said that young people today want to choose jobs when there are no jobs available, perhaps because they do not find much pleasure in working at someone else’s behest.
Adults tend to demonize these young people as lazy, but I believe that, depending on how you look at it, they may be awakening to their own humanity and subconsciously wishing to live a more valuable life instead of living like slaves.
If that is the case, I would like them to have some kind of big dream for their future in order to really enhance their own worthiness, and to make steady efforts to realize that dream, but many of them seem to have a hard time getting their heavy hearts up.
They lack motivation.
They can’t stay motivated.
Don’t know how to work hard.
They are afraid to take risks.
Although each person may have his or her own reasons, the only way to demonstrate one’s true value as a human being is to live a life in which each person develops his or her own abilities, makes the best use of those abilities, and gives back to the world.
It is my strong hope that more and more young people will live in this way in the future.
