by Christina Terry

Created on: October 10, 2009

We as humans all have the same basic needs but complicate our lives with exaggerated needs and unnecessary wants. We put too much pressure on ourselves to live up to society's standards when society's standards may not be what truly make us happy. The media including TV, movies, radio, and music have set a standard which is considerably high. Society says, big houses, luxury cars, exotic vacations and more money than you know what to do with is the good life. But this may not prove true for everyone. Good is the minority. It seems like more and more people are willing to do dishonorable things for their own monetary advancement. Humans are extremely intelligent. Anyone can do anything they put their mind but most people do not live up to their full potential. People worship money like any other god by loving it, striving for it, doing anything to get it and killing for it. How often do we hear on the news of people getting robbed and killed for money? Music stars such as Lil Wayne literally refer to money as Allah because of its false sense of power. I have seen this mentality reflect down on my generation where you will see many people on MySpace flashing money and constantly referring to the importance of money. All governments have failed to live up to its purpose and will continue to fail because man is not able to direct his own ways. Though we have a natural need for leader ship, humans will never universally agree, so any type of leadership is guaranteed to not satisfy all the needs and wants of the people. The only way a government till truly succeed is if al the people of the land adhere to one set of laws and this will never happen due to the many conflicting views and opinions of humans. I learned this from growing up studying the Bible, where the overall theme is that since mankind rejected God's authority when Adam and Eve sinned we were left to govern ourselves which is sure to fail since we were not made to live separate from God, thus all human governments will not succeed. There is no such thing as a perfect childhood. No matter what our situation when we enter this world, whether our parents were married or not, rich or poor, we all experience things growing up that we would have rather not, but when we look back at these are the things that make us who we are. I used to think that all white people grew up with a perfect childhood with two parents, a nice house in a nice neighbor hood however, after growing up and reading many news stories of white people and of all races being affected by things that stereotypically only affect black people such as poverty and crime, I realized my first assumption was far from true. I blame the media for promoting stereotypes like the one that all white people have perfect childhoods and all black people grow up poor and in crime infested neighborhoods because this is not true.

Being a black woman in America, you must carry yourself a certain way. For example when you know as a young woman that smiling at a man is considered an open invitation to a conversation or more, you refrain from smiling at strangers even if you just wanted to be polite. Being originally from San Francisco, its common knowledge that when a homeless man asks for money you are more likely feeding his drug habit than buying him a meal for the day. I believe that experience and the media had had the largest impact on shaping my world view. I am not too hopeful or excited about the future because I know it is not guaranteed. I don't get too close to people because I know the closer they are the more they can hurt you. Sadly, my overall world view is slightly negative.

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