Born good?

People are not born inherently good. I think that one is good because of the people and things in their surroundings. When someone has a good family with them, they will probably end up being good people. If someone has a bad family, they will more than likely turn out to be bad. Sometimes it's not really who you have around you that makes you a bad person, but things you do along that way that trigger that bad side of you. Being good or bad is not something you are born with, it's something you choose to be.

For instance, Jack, from the book The Lord of the Flies, was a good kid at the beginning of the story. We don't know if he had good parents or a good family, just that he was kind of well behaved. In the story, when he was put in charge of hunting, he changed. Something inside him changed, that revealed his bad side. Once he wore the mask, he would become a savage. That mask changed him from the good kid he was into a very savage person. He killed the pig with no problem at all and was just plain evil with all the other little kids.

Another example from the book is Ralph. Although, he stayed good most of the novel, you can see places where he was evil. In the beginning of the story, Ralph was a very happy, helpful boy. He helped out all of the kids. He didn't fight when Jack would want to start something with him or anything like that. But, as the story went along, you can start to see how Ralph is changing. He is no longer happy and he yells at the kids. He becomes bossy and nobody likes him anymore. Ralph starts to yell and even hurt some of the kids in the novel. In this example, Ralph didn't decide to be good or bad, but everything around him was what made him act the way he did.

When I was little I had a neighbor who I would always play with. She was very wealthy and pretty. Her parents would give her anything she wanted. But as we grew up, she started to change. She got into bad habits and started hanging out with bad people. Even though she had a good family, a good life, she wasn't happy. Her parents would give her things but never time and love. She chose to be a bad person to seek attention. Her plan worked. Her parents started paying more attention to her and became more involved in her life. She went from a good kid to a bad kid to, once again, a good kid.

As you can see, you aren't born inherently good or evil. It's things and people in your life that make you who you are. It's a choice you can make to define who you will be in life.