not better, just different

Some people are raised to be selfish. Others raised to be selfless. Some are made to be givers and others to be takers. When I say that they are "raised" that way I only mean that their environment is one that stresses such actions. We, as able-minded people, always have a choice of our actions and personality. Certainly it is hard to break the ways we are taught since our youth, but to say that we are a product of our environment is a sad compromise. 

We are a product of our constant falterings, our successes, our life-changing experiences, our relationships, and our chosen environment. 

We are given an environment when we are born. That environment is more like a coloring book than an instruction manual. We see the outline of what could be. We can choose to color inside the lines and follow a predetermined course of action or we can mix the colors, go outside the lines, and make our own picture. When life gives you a bad environment it isn't saying you have to fail, it is simply saying your path to success might look different than everyone else's.

I'll never take anyone seriously who says that another person had a tough home life. 

From the amount of times I have heard that excuse you'd think that nobody had a happy childhood. It's an excuse tossed around just because someone had a different home life than others. The key word there, if the italics didn't give it away, is different. Nobody has the perfect home life. To some degree or another we've all had a "rough home life". 

Just because my family sins differently than someone else's doesn't mean my life has been any easier. 

Whenever someone says "rough home life" I think of my dad. I think of a thirteen year old kid living in a house with three older sibling and two younger ones. I think of those six kids living in a house with no parents. You wanna compare home lives? My dad and his brothers and sisters raised themselves for an extended period of time. That means packing school lunches and watching out for each other. Couple that with an alcoholic dad and a mom who just remarried another alcoholic. Really a storybook life isn't it? 

My dad never complains about where he came from because honestly, I don't think he'd have it any other way. Has my dad made mistakes? Hell yes. Was my dad ever a product of his environment? Hell no. 

He was a product of his decisions. He's a kid from Mount Washington who never went to college. He was an Army Ranger who travelled the world. He was a manager of a construction company. He was a heavy drinker. Now, he's sober and he works hard 5 or 6 days a week to keep a roof over my family and to keep me in school so that maybe my life can be different than his. Not better but different. 

NP: Wild World- Cat Stevens