What makes us what we are?

One of the greatest questions that posed a striking emphasis on me is the title of this article that I also would want us all to ponder. Perhaps this is as complex as it is but we will try to make sense of it in our ordinary lives as we work, go to school, transact business and serve the people. I saw this question in one of my channel surfing over my cable channels and stopped to ponder on it. Yes, just what makes us what we are?

Do our riches make us better person or community? Do our political connections make us any better compared to those who have none? Does our personality make us into somebody else? Does our education makes up to everything that others lacked? Does our lavish house which tells of unharmonious home makes any difference? Do our brand-new vehicles make any difference? These are vignettes of other questions that I hope will help us in answering our common complex question.

Somehow, people in our communities aspire for riches even to the point of corruption just to claim fame and power however, it does not change anything in the light that what and how much we steal marks our own person and our dignity as a community. We can steal and corrupt as we can but in the end, somebody has to be at the losing end, and in this case, when our national leaders steal from us, may not be financially but morally and spiritually, we are at the losing end. We are at the loss because whenever they steal, they enriched themselves to the detriment of the poor who remains to be poor as days go by and the gap between the rich and the poor widens.

People too obtain highest educational diploma however they have not taken into heart their commitment towards the children of their communities because they treated teaching as a job, a way of survival in a society that has all prices of goods and commodities rise up. Have they served their children in school well? Whenever a teacher is remiss of their duty to their pupils and students, they take away not the present opportunities but shun future opportunities that could make the lives of their pupils and students any better than the rest in their community and help makes an impact. Does it make sense?

Some people too would want power but power is relative as always been the case. Relative in a sense that the more you control, the more powerful one is. Power I am talking here is not political however our brand of power that is present in every organization and offices, that is why many in many offices squabble for positions that portends them to be nearer to the fountainhead of power. Many gossip because they wanted power. Many destroys reputation, assassinates character just plainly because they wanted power over others in any organization or office. Is this what we are making ourselves?

What makes us what we are, are the strong foundations that we have on our character and our being a member of any given society, community or organization and even in the family. We may be the poorest or the riches in our society but reckoning back to where we were before we became rich or poor, is this what makes us what we are? The stark difference perhaps would vary on the amount of hard work and dedication we placed on our assigned tasks but the difference will always be on the manner we make things happen around us. The manner we respond to issues affecting us and the manner we look at things around us are one of the determining factors that make us into what we are. Whenever we are hopeful and looks at things brightly, we encourages ourselves to look at the possibilities with a bold and dedicated outlook not of a bleak and pessimistic approach. What matters really is our attitude towards our communities and societies. We may leave them as they were histories ago but we will be accountable to our progenies and their future. We are answerable not to our present but to our future. What makes us what we are indeed remains to be our attitude and dedication to make a difference on the lives of ordinary men and women in our schools and classrooms, our offices, our organizations, communities and societies.