My Morality: Shaped by Many, Defined by My Choices

This is really a thoughtful and complicated prompt to respond to, considering that a combination of my upbringing, culture , religion and experience, all play a meaningful role in my moral standing as a person. I believe that the morality of a person is shaped by a combination/ blend of their upbringing from childhood, culture learnt from their society, religion and experiences, but morality is ultimately defined by the choices we make.

My upbringing is my foundation. Growing up, I was taught to distinguish what is right from what's wrong. I learnt good morals and values that are now part of me from childhood till date by my parents and the adults around me. Both upbringing , alone isn't enough for any individual, because as individuals we grow up, people also abandon their upbringing and make their own choices, they begin to change certain beliefs and values, especially when life gets really tough, while some hold unto positive values.

Then culture is something I learnt from my society. Culture influences what my society called right and wrong, what was acceptable and not acceptable by all. Personally, I believe most of our culture that's being practiced isn't always morally right. For instance, child marriage, circumcision of a girl child and even slavery. Morality can't solely depend on our culture. Culture influenced my moral standing in many ways that are positive ways too.

Then, religion , religion plays a very major role, religion to me is a moral compass, considering I'm coming from a very religious background, I must say that religion taught me good values that has built my conscience from childhood, from religion I learnt compassion, honesty, justice, forgiveness, love and sacrifice. This doesn't mean a person without religion can't have these morals, I got most values from upbringing and religion, because religion is very prioritized where I grew up and even now as an adult.

And experience, which is the greatest teacher of all. Experience taught me to practice these values, experience faced me with challenges that expanded my understanding and knowledge of what is wrong and right. Experiencing people, love, betrayal, happiness and pain taught a lot, altered my morale standing at some phase in life and altered my morale judgment.

I believe no single factor explains everyone's moral standing, because so many factors contribute to our moral standing and beliefs. Also, I believe the moral standing of an individual continues to evolve as they grow from childhood to adulthood. The human brain is bound to develop morally as they grow, the learn and unlearn certain values.

And I believe that this is also applicable to how I see freedom. To me freedom ought not to be understood as the ability and right to do anything we intend or think of doing without consequences . I believe a more meaningful/ thoughtful understanding of freedom is my ability to make choices and decisions respecting the rights, dignity, and well being of other people. I believe my freedom and liberty should ends and be concluded when it begins to harm/ harm someone else.True freedom isn't the liberty to do whatsoever we want to do. Freedom shouldn't be exercised to harm /hurt others.

In conclusion, I believe that our character is revealed, definitely not only by what the law permits us to do, because everyone is scared of the consequences of breaking the law, but it's revealed by what we choose to do when no one is watching us. Our moral standing is determined less by where our values come from and more by how we live them everyday.