Start Acting

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like if we were all bad? What if we
were all good? Take a deep breath and clear your mind. If you were given a chance to change
one attitude of yours, what would it be? I’m sure you’ve thought about it, maybe once or twice in
your lives. I, personally, would change the way I become kind. Its such a simple answer, so why?

Throughout history, we can safely say even without concrete facts that morals have been
a part of us human beings. May that be spiritually, emotionally and mentally. It’s what sets us
apart from wild animals. Although they have their own set of morals, we have a more fixed idea
on it. We have manners, speech, expressions, actions, etc.

Having this said, today’s youth and society in the Philippines have thrown morals away
as if they were embarrassing. I’m afraid to say that the moral upbringing in our society needs
God’s help. Literally! Without the idea of God, none of them would have their OWN idea of
being “good”.

Generally, the concept of good is the opposite of evil. Now, evil, on the other hand is
defined as being wrong, or immoral—the opposite of moral. Now, here’s a question. If you were
doing something “good”, would it still be considered “good” if it were to have a wrong
intention? For example, you donate P50,000 to charity, only to know that you’ve been thinking
of YOURSELF and your image the whole time. Obviously, we all know the answer to that
question is no. But why are we still attached to it? Why do we keep on doing it, even if we know
that it causes something bad? How would you feel, living your whole life, knowing that you’re
an immoral, bad, immature person? How will you find true love in that kind of mindset?

I know what some of you might be thinking, “we can’t have a society filled with good
people”. That’s true. It’s impossible to even imagine a world filled with righteous people, but
when there’s a greater percentage of immoral, or ”bad” people in the society, can we still say that
it’s a safe environment? Chaos would occur, and you and I know that something is wrong.

According to the philosophy of Theravada Buddhism, a bad person is one who

(physically, verbally, mentally) does bad actions constantly. The following actions are some of
the bad actions according to Gotama Buddha:

1. For his benefit, for another’s benefit, or for some small gain, he would tell lies with
awareness.
2. He would talk roughly, say words that are sharp and cursing, words with anger.
3. One wants others’ possessions, wishes may those things be mine.

Now, we would assume that once we do those, we can automatically be seen as a “bad”
example for the youth and to ourselves, am I right?
 Start Acting

I can list so many problems that’s happening in society that I fear will not end. An
obvious one is bullying. We all know about the Ateneo bully scandal that went around social
media, right? We all thought it was funny, I admit it. But all jokes aside, we all knew that it was
wrong, right? We all still know it was wrong, but to my observations, some—SOME students
have the audacity to copy the action, to make them look cool! That “simple” act would be
defined as immoral.

As a student, discussing these problems within 5 minutes isn’t easy. It would take a
whole book to explain. Although this doesn’t upset me, because I believe we can still be a
progressing society only we all start within ourselves. To finally conclude what this all means, I
propose the awareness of being unconditionally kind, with a good example of moral upbringing
with or without the idea of God. When you want to become good, don’t think of your image,
think of the harmony around you. We don’t want to die as bad people. We don’t want the evil to
possess us, we all want the opposite, right? So stop waiting, and start acting.