Nationality and ethnic characteristics

One is often inclined to tag a person through his or her unique attribute like appearance, nationality, eccentri accent etc. Nationality and ethnic characteristics are most frequent way of defining a person. In my neighborhood, there is Mexican person who is very jovial but he has an irritating habit of shaking his head and laughing at silly jokes. So we often refer to him as ‘ mover and shaker’ and like to interact with him because he gives such unique perspective to serious and non serious issues. Unfortunately, he is also a crooked old bachelor of seventy years and his crusty ribald jokes sometimes become irritating. He thinks the world is a merry go round and we must enjoy every moment. But perhaps, he is right because we are living in a fast paced time where we often forget to interact with nature or even enjoy the leisure time. The competitive world has made us more selfish and less prone to enjoy our success lest we may lose it to our competition. Our mover and shaker makes us laugh. His silly jokes make us forget our sorrows and tensions of the day. Whenever we are angry at someone or something, he would jokingly tell us to imagine that person as a stone. Then he would pick a stone and ask us to throw it away. With him we would often throw away our tensions just like stones. His unique way of looking at things has made us wiser and a better person. We have learnt from him that love and laughter must be cherished as life is too short to waste it away on hate, jealousy and rivalry. (words: 277)