Learning from Experiences
While sitting on my couch, I recalled when I was sitting in a tree outside the house watching my grandparents and my parents preparing dinner. No matter how far away I am from my ranch or my relatives, I´ve always kept in my mind all the stuff I learned there such as helping others or giving a hand to whomever needs it. When I came to the United States, I started to see that nobody gives a damn about others. Everyone is so involved in their own business. One time I saw a pregnant woman in the middle of the road having problems with her broken down car. She was waving her hands trying to attract a good Samaritan, but I think she acknowledged her situation; nobody helps anyone. Some cars just dodged her car, others just honked at her, and some rude guys just flipped her off because her broken car was causing a delay in their hectic life and daily routine. Perhaps many people would call me old-fashioned; I think manners and cordiality are the same here in this big box country as on my small ranch. When I stopped to help her, she was amused and had a question mark on her face. She asked me why I helped her. I just replied with a simple –you needed help.
Also, I noticed that there are no differences when talking about religion. Here in the United States many people rely for interior peace and well-being on a religion. In my home-town I saw lots of people going to church to the Sunday sermon. When the priest started to address the people, they began to nod to everything he said. When the whole sermon finished, I would hear all the people muttering and punishing themselves because they weren’t good enough for God. One day I heard one couple chattering in the distance about what the priest said. They were talking about the commitments they broke the previous week because they didn’t have enough time to go to the last sermon. But here is the real question for me; how can someone feel bad just because they don’t have time to go to a Sunday sermon? I think many people have their heart set on being good practitioners. And being a good practitioner means going to church every Sunday, and of course, giving their time to the church instead of working in the fields the entire Sunday to give to their children the money to buy school supplies or just in order to have more money to buy more food. Living here in the States for one year has let me think about and discern some aspects of this country. Here religious people give to God everything they have; their time, their money, and maybe their life. And the same thing happens on my ranch.
Another important and similar aspect I noticed is the huge importance that some people here in the United States give to superficial things or frills. There is an enormous difference between the priorities that urban and rural people have. For instance, some people here in the United States are supposed to have a tier-one life while in rural areas life is lived day by day. Also, here in the States people give an extraordinary importance to clothes. Clothing has a huge roll in people’s thoughts. You are classified according to the clothes you wear. The same thing happens on my ranch. There were lots of people trying to get designer clothing. I knew they used to work in the fields with me, but they tried to be another person, a rich person. I think they tried to fit into other social spheres. When wearing those fancy clothes, my friends forgot everything they used to be; their morals, their beliefs, their values, and in some cases their parents. I saw those people changing their behavior according to the people around them. I think hypocrisy is increasing due to the fact that material things and family values are being overtaken by materialism. Human beings just made up a way to cover all the important things with a thin layer of egocentrism. But we can´t blame other people for everything. The main problem is that people find material things more appealing than family. And also, parental figures are not doing anything to stop this awful situation.
I learned many things living on that ranch. Many of them I learned with bad and painful experiences. So, once I started seeing how some people complain and weep about everything in life, I recalled the whole shebang I soaked up. We are not supposed to make a fuss over all the mishaps that happen in our life. I acknowledge that there are rich people and ostentatious rich people and a huge difference that marks people’s guidelines and the way they treat other human beings. As a personal opinion, I’ve tried to coexist with those ostentatious people, but I think somewhere deep inside of me, I just can’t deal with it. I have seen many people acting in a despot way. They step all over other people’s thoughts and feelings. This situation is a never ending circle.
I think that people must look at their past experiences and examine their past very carefully. We don’t have to be born on a ranch or in a poor family in order to help other people. Values must never go hand in hand with money or clothes.
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