The choices we make

Life is all about choices and the choices we make are determined in large part by the way we were raised. The old saying "if he didn't have bad luck, he wouldn't have any luck at all" holds true for a lot of people but it's not because of luck, it's because of bad choices. Our jobs, our relationships, our friendships and our future are all dictated by the decisions we make.

When we look back on our lives, it's easy to find many different forks in the road where if we had chosen the other route rather than the one we took, our lives would have been significantly different from the way they turned out. If we had chosen to marry that person we were in love with rather than continuing to do what we had done up til then, the rewards would have been many. If we had taken that job across the state, or the country or the world rather than staying put because it felt safe, our lives would have changed dramatically. If we had chosen friends who were doing their best to make the world a better place rather than hanging on to the do-nothing's of the world, our lives would have been infinitely better.

But in large part, we made those decisions based on how we were raised and the influence our family members had on us. That's why there will always be an underclass of people living in every society. Our families give us the norms and values that dictate our future and if they're positive and life-affirming, then we will be too and if they're not, then we won't be.

When we examine cities across the country and the globe, we find that crime and deviant behavior tends to come from the same families and the same neighborhoods from generation to generation. In other words, it's hereditary but from a social perspective and not a biological one. If you're taught to lie, cheat and steal to get what you want, then it's likely that's what you'll do. That's why in every city in America, there are neighborhoods with high crime rates and other neighborhoods in the same city with hardly any crime at all. That dynamic often changes with time because of migration within a city. For example, the neighborhood where my parents lived in Tulsa when I was a kid was a typical middle-class neighborhood with no crime to speak of. As those middle class people migrated out toward the suburbs, they were replaced with lower class people and the crime rate escalated. Today, it's one of the highest crime areas in the city.

I was taught when I was a child to set my goals high and to never be satisfied with less. That led me out of a very small town in Arkansas where I was raised to places and achievements all over the world. I couldn't have done it without the attitude my folks instilled in me that I could achieve anything I desired if I set my mind to it. Now, granted, I didn't always succeed and I didn't always get what I wanted but the desire to never wavered.

Compare that attitude with the attitude so many kids are exposed to in crime-infested neighborhoods where the objective is to get what you want outside the rules of society. In law abiding society the journey is just as important as the destination; that is how you get something is just as important as getting it but that norm doesn't exist in many neighborhoods and families. Getting it is the only important thing and how you get it doesn't matter. When children are raised that way, that's who they become and you could put a cop on every street corner in America and criminals would still be criminals.

Some reform themselves, most don't. Some are rehabilitated, most aren't because you can't change who a person is without their permission and most people don't want to change because who they are is who they've always been and that's the only life they know.

We all wish there was a magic potion we could give people to make them wake up and see the light but there isn't. So they will continue to make the same mistakes and exercise the same poor judgment they've been making all their lives , all the while believing that their wrong actions and decisions are right.