MY VALUES
WILLFULNESS, KINDNESS, AND COMMUNITY
The ramblings of a Filipino in Aotearoa
It is widely claimed that our personal values are shaped by our social identities ;
in this page I am going to give a good crack at telling you all about mine
I'd like to preface this whole section with a question I asked myself as I was preparing to write it.
'Are our personal values and consequent ethical decisions what we claim them to be or are they fluid to the social identity that we assume within the moment'
I immediately thought back to the time where I was working as a knife hand at a butchery circa 2021. It was smoko™
and I was lining up to get some food from the butchery's storefront.
A person who had been known to shoplift was trying to get in but got recognized and stopped by one of the workers; the worker asks them to leave, they insisted they were only there for the hot food.
Tensions escalated and whether it was my impatience to get my daily sustenance of a pie and some nicotine, or my social identity as a worker in the establishment; I entered the conversation begrudgingly
I first try to dissuade the person by appealing to them, the cops were already called at this point and I advised them to leave before the cops got truly involved, to no avail.
They took it the wrong way and tried walking past me, I push them back which led to a very intense standoff and it ended with them walking away.
In the midst of all the red I was seeing, a dark realization dawned on me, I was ready to fight someone who was just hungry.
I immediately regret my behavior but I put on a rather arrogant front for all my co-workers who seemed quite impressed with what just happened.
I came home that day confused, am I a true Westerner™ now? Have I forsaken the values that my mother had taught me? To always try feed the hungry?
Have I adopted the debilitating mindset of food being yet another commodity rather than a basic human necessity? Or was I just cranky and wanting a hit of nicotine?
The following weeks I would randomly ask myself these questions and eventually, I knew I just had to forget about the whole situation and if ever a similar situation arose,
I promised myself to be truer to the values I hold dear; one of them being food is meant to be shared.
There was a disparity between who I was in that altercation to the person who I perceive myself to be.
A concept I was raised on came to mind frequently in those weeks of self-doubt; Bayanihan.
A concept always portrayed as an innate spirit that we should always have. To help anyone in need within your social group or bayan.
A concept that I saw in my Ma any time she went out of her way to feed the hungry.
A concept among many others which I considered were the building blocks to who I was;
A concept that I shall carry with me and pass on as others did with me.