Victims of Environment?

Sometimes we complain that we are victims of environment. Sometimes this is so, but no always as we sometimes suppose. It is true that environment has much to do with the decisions and actions of men, but in any environment there are choices. In any environment there are those who reach higher and those who drift lower. In any environment, good or bad, there is choice between better things and worse things, and in some degree men do determine direction — men do decide for themselves. Shakespeare said: “God has given you one face, and you make yourselves another.” We do in many ways shape ourselves by our decisions. We can choose in some degree in any environment, what we think, what we do, what we don’t do, what habits we have, and to the extent that we can, we are responsible for our choices. And when people justify lack of honesty, lack of morality, or lack of ethics on the grounds that they are influenced by something outside themselves, they are merely saying what every person could say in greater or lesser degree. If we were absolutely predetermined to be certain things, or to do certain things, no one could be held accountable for anything, ever. There are pressures in life. There always were. We are always acted upon, as we in turn act upon others. WE are always influenced by others as we in turn influenced others. But this doesn’t mean that we have any reason to run through life rudderless. “Men, like rivers,” said Dr. Harvey Fletcher, “become crooked by following the line of least resistance.” Sometime everyone has to say, “Get thee behind me, Satan.” “We can only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in there present moment,” said George Eliot, “or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of obeying the Divine Voice within us.” This is the substance of self-control: choosing whether we will indulge ourselves in the present moment, or whether we will obey the Divine Voice within us. We can change our lives for the better, if we will.