In our modern world, there are many different belief systems and ideals shared by people across the planet. These beliefs tend to be centered around a religion or teaching, while some of them come from a personal understanding of how the world works. The challenge is figuring out which beliefs are the most “morally correct”. It is easy to think of yourself as the good guy in these situations, what is not easy is questioning your own ideals and putting yourself in the position of someone else. Since I was a teenager, I was always curious about why people made certain choices. I wanted to gain a deeper understanding of the people around me. This formed one of the most important parts of my identity: my morals and ideals.  

Growing up, we are often taught to run to an adult when we need help solving an issue. The concept that all adults are intelligent, level-headed individuals is practically engraved in our minds. However, when I turned 18, I started to question the decisions made by many adults around me. Working at Taco Bell for a year also made me rethink what my parents had taught me as a kid. I worked as a cashier at the Taco Bell in Fairview Heights for a year and a half. In that short time, I noticed a lot of adult customers making irrational decisions, such as directing their anger at a high school kid or being impatient when there is a long line of cars behind them. While Taco Bell customers are not a good representation of the average adult, it still opened my eyes to how unreasonable some adults truly are. Despite what we are taught as kids, not every adult is as “grown-up” as one would expect. In fact, many of the people that we consider adults in society are 18–19-year-olds who are fresh out of high school and are not sure where to go next. Many of our “grown-ups” are just children who have not fully matured yet. Besides not every adult making rational decisions most of the time, adults around us are often unable to see things from another person’s POV.  

The fear of other people’s opinions is common for most late adolescents and early adults. People nowadays are so afraid of what others will think of them if they act in a certain way. This often leads to many people hiding their true opinions and putting on a mask around certain individuals. Obviously, this is a major issue for those in that age range, however, one could argue that the opposite side of this problem yields even worse results. Contrary to popular belief, people are not focused on the mistakes and shortcomings of others. Most adults are too consumed with their own lives to worry about the lives of others. An example of this that I noticed from my childhood years later was when my parents split. From what I was told, my dad had a hard time cooperating with the terms of child custody. This led to him disappearing from my life for years at a time. When I was younger, I used to think it was something that I did. As I grew up though, I started to realize that everything my dad did was because he was focused on getting what he wanted, and when that did not happen, he decided to leave. Many young people are just like that, only worried about how an issue affects them and not concerned about how it affects those around them. While I know I cannot blame or judge them, since I can be the same way sometimes, I also know that there must be a point when people start to realize how wrong that self-centered mindset truly is. That point for me was when I graduated high school, I knew that I was an adult at that point, so I had to start acting like one. The first step to that is changing the little choices you make every day. The unfortunate aspect of this is that not many people want to change, which brings up the whole concept of morality. 

I would like to believe that my sense of morality developed when I was an early teenager. Ever since the age of 14, I knew I wanted to be a good person. Despite all the bad circumstances that I was involved in, I never wanted to “get even”, I just wanted to be able to make people happy. To this day, I still think like this. While I may have moments where I wish bad on people or hope they go through some sort of struggle, I always go back to trying to help and support people. My belief is that people should want to be good or to be nice, but the reality is often very different. Many people in our world are just heartless, they act based on their own emotions and have no reaction to how it negatively affects those around them. These people usually have a core reason why they are the way they are, whether that be because of a traumatic event from their past or because they need to compensate for other aspects of their life. Either way, the common explanation for many is “I was hurt in the past, so I am going to hurt others now”. Drawing back to my last example, my dad’s father was never there for him as a kid, as a result, he never knew how to be a father for me. I do not fully understand why, but I have never thought like that before. A motto I like to live by is: “Never let the negative actions of others change who you are as a person”. Through every bad situation I went through with either parents or friends, the first thought on my mind was what I would have done differently if I was in their position. It is sad to look around and see that not many other people think the way that I do. 

These three issues may seem unrelated at first, but the correlation starts to reveal itself after a while. The irrationality, mixed with a self-centered logic, gives many adults a twisted sense of morality and “justice”. Sadly, most of these people know how messed up their ideals are, but they are too stubborn to change. They are stuck in an endless pattern of anger and pain. I have seen the patterns too. I have noticed how certain trends tend to stick around in my family or with my friends. Along with being a good person, that has also been a major goal of mine, to end the cycle and work towards something better. That is what I am doing now, looking for new ways to make sure that I never go down the same path as the ones that came before me. If everyone else wants to stay the same, I will be the one person to look at myself outside of my bias and make a change.