Birth

 Do we write our own story?

Or do we already have a story to continue?

So yesterday, I was caught in between a debate about 2 different views about being human. It's a very interesting debate and I would like to invite you to join it too.Here are the two stands:

Stand A: We are all born with a set of personalities that we will carry for the rest of our lives, no matter of the environment (social, education, economical etc) we live in.

For example, if we're born as someone who loves to donate (i.e: generosity trait), even if we're brought up in a family who's super stingy, we may still be generous as we grow up or at another different time of our lives. Maybe when we're married and when we have a family of our own.

Stand B: Our personalities are shaped as we grow up, from the moment we're born till we're about 30 years old, when our mind is "shaped". 

So in this stand, if we're brought up in a family who's generous, we'll be generous for the rest of our lives and vice versa. So what we're being taught to when we are young will remain with us forever.

What do you think?

I am leaning more towards stand A actually, because like I said in my previous post about how our minds are like clay, which is shaped as we grow up by the teachings and actions of others, and by the experiences we went through as well. Although I do believe that there are some things that we carry within ourselves since we're born. And we carry till we die.

There must be a reason to why we do things and behave in a certain way now. Okay well if you're an adult that is. For example I like to donate because to me it's a way to build up my good karma and pay off the bad ones that I did. And also both of my parents are also generous people and I did learn from them too. So in one way or another, it is the environment we live in that truly affect ourselves and our personalities as we grow up I guess?

Now going back to the first case of Stand A, that a person who's brought up in a super stingy family can still turn generous in another time of his life. The question is, how did he turn generous in a later part of his life? So here is where you make your choice. You can believe that he carries a "generous trait" with him that turns him to be generous. Or you can believe that perhaps something happened to him that made him change into a generous person.

For example maybe he was being really stingy, and then he experienced a few hardships before, and got help by others who are being so generous by him. That's when he turns generous.

In yesterday's debate, the Stand B group don't believe in the "traits we carry and stick with our life" because they feel that it is rather unfair to sort of "shape" who we are since we're born into this world. And also, that everyone has the ability and power to change their personalities, be it through the environment around us or well the fact that we want to change it.

Whereas Stand A group don't believe that environment can change our personalities.

My conclusion? Both are right. They just have their own different, distinct ways to think about life. Like I always believed, there is no right and wrong in this world, it's just a matter of different opinions. So yeah, don't have to always think that the other party is right/wrong. They just have a different perspective of seeing the issue.

I suppose this is like fate/destiny. We can't change our fate. But we can change our destiny, since somehow the things we choose to do now will in one way or another affect our destiny. Whereas fate is sort of "planned by the heavens" already.

Last but not least,

I choose to believe that I am writing my own story in life. Not just continuing a story that someone else gave to me. We may be given a book with a certain number of page in this life. But we surely write out own story. At least, I choose to write mine.