Begin With the End in Mind (a borrowed title)

There's a conversation that comes up a lot that I've never really discussed.

Is man good or are we evil?

Are we born and automatically bad and then learn how to be good or is it the other way around? Are we born good and just learn how to do evil?

It's something that's discussed often and I've never fully given it much thought because ultimately it doesn't matter. But for the sake of conversation I want to throw a middle ground option here. Why must everything be black and white? Why does a gray area have to be a bad thing?

Why can't it just be that area that dwindles somewhere in between what's reality and what is false?

What if man is just born. What if he is not born good or bad, but he just exists. Most would assume that the optimistic approach is that we are born evil and have the capacity for great good and that the pessimistic view would be just the opposite. But what if we have the capacity for both great evil and great good?

I lean more toward this line of thinking. We have an unbound source to do great either way. Our capacity for good is just as powerful as our capacity to do bad. In the end it's about who we let into our lives. Who will influence us the most?

Parents.

Peers.

Media.

Education.

Faith.

You.

At the end of the day it's about motives. It's about who you choose to be and why you choose to be him or her. You cannot blame someone else for your actions. If you're immature, it's because you chose to be. Sure there are outside influences that effect what you do, but in the long run, your soul is yours and what you do changes who you are.

You just have to decide who you are and who you want to be. It starts whenever you're ready. It's starts right now.

It starts here.

I have a challenge for those of you who are willing to participate.

I want you to think about a funeral. Everyone you know is there. Your closest friends and family are all gathered around a coffin and the one who knows you the most stands up to give the eulogy. You aren't present in the crowd for you realize that the tears are for you.

This is your funeral. You died unexpectedly and here we all are now mourning your loss.

At funerals they tend to talk about the character of the person who died. Here's the challenge. Write your own eulogy. Write what you think would be said about you. Be honest. Be extreme. be harsh.

I think if all of us were to take an honest look at ourselves, we would become more depressed and feel really really bad about who we are.

Once you've done this, think about it. Think about who you are with people and how that effects your own life. After you're done feeling bad for yourself, write a separate eulogy.

Now write the one that you want to be read at your funeral. Think about who you aren't and how you want to be that person. If you want to be one who inspires, write that down.

If you want to be the one who always makes people smile or laugh, write that down!

Self examination is necessary with moving on in life. I'm going to do this as well and I hope that this experiment helps people ask questions about themselves because in the end, we all have a long way to go.

So let's do life together.

-Chris 'Fatboy' Peters