I am someone who tends to think, like I think a lot, and most of the times when I look at people, when I look at their certain traits..... the way they make decisions, their kindness, their wickedness, thier intelligence and all, I can't help but wonder what exactly shaped or turn them into that.
I am a story lover, so I love to use stories in my write-ups.
While growing up, I knew a boy, his name was Tunde(not his original name), Tunde was known to be a bully both in school and at home, he's always fond of beating up his younger ones and also stealing meat from his mum pot. Everybody knew Tunde would definitely grow up into a bully that he is and become a menace. Guess what, today, Tunde is now a pastor, he has a wife and two beautiful kids, most funny part is, he now runs a frozen foods shop, he no longer steals meat, he sells it.
That same compound of ours also had another boy, Tola(not his real name), when parents want to use a child as a good example to others, to emulate, they always refer to Tola...."don't you see Tola, dont you see how respectful he is, is Tola not of same age with you, have you ever seen Tola's mother shout the way you make me......." Tola is always smiling and willing to help. But somewhere along the line, Tola became a cultist, I last heard he's been on the run since they had their usual cult clash. I've since stopped believing that humans are strictly made/born.
My own parents raised me with love, prayers, discipline (my dad is a teacher, so am sure you can relate well), morning devotions, punishments, birthday celebration and all, even if they had to borrow, they will definitely try their best to do the best they could, even with that, I can remember vividly how I do run away from school during fellowship hours to pluck cashew, and I would definitely tell them I had to wait for fellowship in school, back then also, I do gossip and mock others to feel big.
Nobody taught me all of that, life did, the day someone called me out and talked to me was the day I realized how bad/ugly/worse I had become and what I could evntuale turn out to be. The words of that day changed me. Personally, I believe no one is born to be good or to be bad, my believe is that we are born to be capable of both, while life, experiences, heartbreaks, occurrences, sadness, pain, love, correction, exposure and all are what push us back and forth while molding/shaping us into who we become.
There's no perfect manual out there to help parents raise a child, some parents can spend their last on a child, some parents can spend the best part of their nights to kneel and be praying for their kids....and many more, yet they still lose such children to drugs and other vices. So also we have children raised by violent parents, parents who were never there for them and yet such children grow up to be a good softhearted one who would never hit or shout at a child. For me, it's a matter of choice, some grew up from good homes but choose waywardness, while grew up in bad but choose to be good. It's the truth, its what we see in our society.
You get to some homes and you see their firstborn acting nonchalant, while the lastborn carries the whole households like he,she is the head of the family. Back then in school, I do see a lot ladies gain admission and you would know this one's are raised from very strict religious homes, but after few weeks/months of them tasting freedom, they go wild. As I said earlier, it is individual choices, I don't think there's a blueprint, not at all, I can't say it is fully luck as well, luck might be a part of though. We all fight that battle within us, the battle of the soul versus what life brings its way.
I would say that there's no formula to this thing, we keep falling, we keep on learning, we keep getting injured, we keep on healing, we keeo on making decisions and trying again..... So, there’s no dice to toss. No one is entirely good or bad, and as I will always say..."all of us are a work in progress."
All pictures are mine.
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