Freedom and Self-Respect

I had the good fortune of reading the Godfather a few months ago when my friend gave me the book as a christmas present but what I didn't understand in the book was why did Don Corleone went into the Mafia business and the reason cited was the way of Sicilian life which had a great impact on him. After reading the Sicilian, I began to understand why some men went into Mafia. The Sicilian system back then did not reward the hardworking people and it favours the rich and the rich is by default when you are born. That is if you are born a farmer's son, you will be a farmer in your later life and the vicious cycle continues.

I truly understood the reasons why Don Corleone became the Godfather and one of the many things the system in Sicily took away was their freedom and respect. Freedom is priceless and he truly believed that he did not owe anyone anything if he can 'make his own bones' and with his vision, charisma and intelligence, he became the feared and yet respected 'Godfather'. Another thing the Sicilian system back then took away was their self-respect and the Godfather realised that no one should never take away his self-respect as that's one of the most defining virtues of a man.

As I was sitting in my steel tutorial class, I began to feel disgusted with myself as I was not able to understand a single 'shit' about the module and I'm putting myself in a position where I have to take down notes of the answers as I went to the class unprepared. The same goes for some of my modules where I'm totally lost in some of my modules.

I realised that you should never owe anyone a living as that would make you complacent and dependant. The army made me realise the value of self-respect and freedom and I told myself that I would never let go of the 2 things. However,due to my attitute in recent years, I'm starting to feel contented with almost anything which comes my way which is a dangerous one as I'm struggling to hold on to my freedom.

I then realised that I should not let this attitude be my own downfall in the exams and told myself that I had to do something about it. For me to earn the freedom from the Singaporean system, I need to 'make my bones'. It's very important that I do not become a product of the education and society where I will be swimming with the many fishes hoping for a lucky break. It's perhaps time to discard the complacent attitude within me and start to buck up and think real hard about the future and make plans before I even have time to wake up from my slumber and realise that I have wasted 25 years of my life at the end of my 4 year degree and become a slave to the system for the rest of my life by doing something worthless to get by in life.