People, too often, use their past as an excuse for their behaviour.
Tonight, I got into a conversation with someone about what makes a person bad
and what justifies their bad decisions. For some reason, we ended up on a
course that neither of us can really move on from now but some very good points
were established, hence why I am here, about to share them with you. The girl whom
I was engaging in discussion with is very religious and asked me ‘Because I
have God, who forgives my sins. I’ve always wondered how non-religious people
justify their wrongs.’ She then asked me how I justify my wrongs and my reply
was as followed
‘We can’t justify it, that’s the thing! I try to. I use my
life as an excuse to make up for all the wrongs; at least I used to! Honestly,
partly it is to blame, but I have learnt this really important thing in more
recent times, and that is, that only we control our own actions. This then
takes away my excuse of my past to an extent as well. I have no real way to
justify my wrong doings; just excuses! I believe that your life can shift your
behaviour and of course many things are adopted rather than inherited, the
whole nature vs. nurture thing. Yet, too often, we blame those things for the
people we become. Like imagine if I felt like I could genuinely kill someone.
Quite obviously, this feeling would derive from the hurt in my life and not
being able to see the good side of people. But if I go out and kill someone, my
past is not responsible for that, I am.’
I know; a long response indeed. But one that speaks too much
truth to cope. I always used to try and use the term ‘No one sees my struggle,
they only see my trouble’ as an excuse to justify my behaviour. I always used
my life to explain why I did things like steal, break and enter into properties
and take drugs. Whilst to an extent, my past can provide understanding, it
doesn’t provide justification.
I am very guilty of this. I’m not denying that. However; we consciously
choose to do or not do things and we control our own behaviour. Therefore, it
is not feasible to use what we have been through and what others have done to
us as justification to what we do to others or do just in general.
