Just like charity, everything else starts at home. It is where the wings sprout from its base for all kinds of learning. Home is where you first learn to speak, to sing, to respect, to behave, to work hard, to lie or to tell the truth, to do good or evil, to be kind or cruel; it is the first place of learning for all, regardless of color, race or culture.

Home gives you the basic foundation for all kinds of virtue that you can later choose to develop or discard. It is where you get an idea or basic understanding of life and things, social, religious, economic or political. Literally everything is based at home because this is where you start to evolve as a human being, as a citizen of a certain town or city, and essentially as a global citizen of the world.

What we learn as children goes a long way in shaping our dreams and aspirations. And it’s important not just because our childhood upbringing, in whatever form it may be, stays with us for a long time, but because so much of what we become in life also goes back to the background we’re all so familiar with. If you and I, today, are known for being kind or generous, then it probably has something to do with our upbringing. Or if we are known to be selfish, petty and arrogant, then it also has something to do with our own respective home environment as a child.

Much more than what academic institutions can teach us, the virtues and values ​​we pick up growing up continue to have a greater impact on the roles we play as students, as professionals, or as young people. One may have excellent academic records, but that aspect does not fully define a person. Only when that excellence is combined with the right attitude and personality does a particular person become someone worth admiring.

It’s easy to undermine the value of good character in this growing world of materialism, but it’s important to check in on ourselves from time to time, to make sure we haven’t yet lost, along with time, the rich virtues that make us whole. Because after all, we are neither more nor less than human beings, and deep down there is the human need for good feelings.

They say that learning is a lifelong process, but we certainly develop our character from the place and environment in which we grow up. While we must all strive to keep learning, we must also remember to stay grounded and connected to our roots, to our good childhood values, because they form the foundation of who and what we are. And because children (unless we are born to unfortunate parents) are always taught to be kind and good, to refrain from telling lies, to be respectful, to behave well, to share and be grateful for what we have. And these virtualities are surely worth keeping for a lifetime.