The book “The Other Moore” provides a good look at the lives of two people who were in the same location under similar conditions. The author was born in Baltimore, the same place as the other Moore that he refers to in the story. In the conventional world, one would expect that the two would probably end up with the same lifestyle. Things turn out to be different as the author emerges to be more successful compared to the other Moore. The situation the two are faced with makes one inquire whether the destiny of a person is always shaped by the decisions they make or the environment in which the person is brought up. I believe that the decisions made by a person greatly affect the extent to which he or she will be successful.
There are various instances within the book that prove that the ability of a person to be successful in life is affected by the type of life he or she decides to live. The two characters are born under the same conditions; they have similar family structures. Both of them do not have father figures in their families. They have to decide how they want to live their lives since their mothers also have problems and cannot in any way control the manner in which they behave. The author’s mother made a decision that helped him get good values that later helped him in life.
Good values can help to shape the type of life that one lives. It is evident in the life of the author, who has made the best choices in life. The values he acquired in military school are the ones that have enabled him to come up with a good life. He is also not involved in any criminal activities because his mother made the right decision to help him by getting into military school. On the other side, Wes’s mother did not make any responsible decisions. She did not decide to take Wes to military school so that he could learn the values that would later be important in life.
Moore’s decision was also a result of his realization of the importance of discipline and education. The decisions that one makes can either help build or destroy the future. Once one implements a given decision, it is evident from the book that there is no opportunity for second chances. The book states that “from everything you told me, both of us did some pretty wrong stuff when we were younger. And both of us had second chances. But if the situation or the contexts where you make the decisions don’t change, then second chances don’t mean too much, huh?” It implies that one will not get another chance to rectify one’s life once one makes bad decisions. The other Wes Moore does not get the chance to change his life, although he has learned as a result of life imprisonment.
The ability of one to change the decisions they have made in life is affected by the type of decisions they make. The other Moore decided to please the friends he had by selling drugs to make money; the book states that “Wes now knew for sure how powerful drugs could be…he understood how easy it would be to make some money off selling that feeling to people who needed it” (62). He thought that this was a more natural way to succeed. He might have earned more money than the author during this period, but at long last, his violent nature landed him in problems. The book, therefore, proves the idea that the decisions that we make in life determine the type of life we live. We are not controlled by luck. Few people are born lucky. Most of the people succeed or fail in life as a result of the decisions they make.
Works Cited
Wes Moore. (2010). The other Wes Moore. Random House Publication
