“We are what we repeatedly do.

”—Aristotle

Having a personal philosophy or ideology that one believed in is important for a person to better
understand his own personality. A philosophy will serve as one’s roadmap on how he will live
his life. The statement by Aristotle, “We are what we repeatedly do,” best describes my
roadmap---this is my philosophy.

I certainly believe that each one of us is born as “tabularasa” or a blank slate as referred to by
Rabindranath Tagore. What we do and whatever we have become as we grow old are shaped by
the things that we acquire from our surrounding and the upbringing that we had. However, we
do not remain as a “tabularasa”. As we grow old, we develop the sense of decision and maturity.
We now have the choice to take the course of actions that we think is appropriate and right based
from our judgment. True as the saying, “nobody is perfect,” as we commit mistakes and I agree
that life is lived through a “Nintendo formula” or what we call trial and error. We make a
choice, commit mistakes, but definitely, we should own up to our mistakes and learn from it to
become better persons. This is where Aristotle’s philosophy take up a huge role. The course of
actions and choices we make define us. It reflects the personality that we have and reveals the
kind of person we are. We may not be perfect but there is no excuse to continuously doing bad
actions and bad choices. Once, twice may be forgivable but doing a thing over and over again
shows who we really are.

Our actions done in several occasions and our consistency in doing things presents what is really
in our hearts. We may all have committed mistakes in the past but doing good and being kind
should be what we should all choose in the end. Our actions speak for us. We are what we
repeatedly do.