People are only mean when threatened, which is what our culture does. That's what our economy does. Even people with jobs in our economy are threatened because they worry about losing them. And when you get threatened, you start looking out only for yourself. You start making money as a god. It is all part of this culture.
We should build our own culture. It doesn't mean disregarding every rule of the community, but while obeying the little things, we create our own choices for the big things - how we think, what we value - those you must choose for yourself. You can't let anyone- or any society - determine those for you.
Our culture conditions people. It's the same for women not being beautiful enough or men not being rich enough. It's just what our culture would have you believe, but don't believe it. Every society has problems, and the way to do them is not to run away. You have to work at creating your own culture.
No matter where you live, the most significant defect we human beings have is our shortsightedness. We are still determining what we could be. We should look at our potential, stretching ourselves into everything we can become. But if you're surrounded by people who say, 'I want mine now,' you end up with a few people with everything and a military to keep the poor from rising up and stealing it.
The problem is that we don't believe we are as much alike as we are. Men and women, whites and blacks, young and old. If we saw each other as more alike, we might be eager to join one big human family in this world and to care about that family the way we care about our own.
We all have the same beginning - birth, and we all have the same end - death. So how different can we be? Invest in the human family. Invest in people. Build a little community of those you love and who love you. At the start of life, when we are infants, we need others to survive, and at the end of life, we again need others to survive, but the truth is that in between, we need others as well.
Anvesha Rana
Grade 10-B
Gyanshree School
