You know what? It has dawned on me that the environment we live in influences the kind of people we become and how creative we are in our careers. That's why it's so essential to bring up children in a home which is not only neat and orderly but also loving and caring.

My brothers and I weren't lucky to be raised in a neat and orderly home. We lived in wooden houses that had rusty iron-sheet roofs. Needless to say, we depended on firewood for cooking and a pit latrine for relieving ourselves.

Those wooden houses came to age miserably. They would leak water whenever it rained, and the leaking water would form a stream on the slanted floor. On one rainy night in 2015, my younger brother Symo took a picture of my flooded room that resembled a river.

And the pit latrine? Oh my! Should I talk about it? Well, the latrine would flood with water during the rainy seasons, making our solid waste matter float to the surface. The sight of that solid waste matter made eating a less exciting sensory delight for us.

Such is the kind of environment we grew up in. Had we been raised in an elegant home, we would now be far more successful individuals. As for me, I wouldn't have developed the psychosomatic illnesses I was diagnosed with at the two local universities I attended. Instead, I would have made it into MIT, Yale or Harvard as it was my dream.

My brilliant brother Paddy seems to have been the first one in my family to discern how pathetic an environment we were living in. I think he owes that discernment to the exposure he got while doing a gap year internship at an elite school in New South Wales, Australia.

When Paddy jetted back from Australia in September or October 2005, he began to detest the low standards of our home. He occasionally regaled me with tales of the sort of stylish homes he observed people in Australia reside in.

It therefore came as no surprise to me when, after landing a well-paying job with a multinational, Paddy marshalled resources from my brothers for constructing a brick mansion for our humble parents. They had it built in 2015.

I am glad that my late mother lived in the brick mansion for about eight years. How proud she was of it! While the mansion was under construction, she would ask visitors to have a look at it. And after it was completed, she enjoyed entertaining guests in it.

Had my brothers not constructed the brick mansion, I wouldn't have been as creative and courageous as I have been over the past eight years. That's why it has dawned on me that the environment we live in influences the kind of people we become. And that's also why I have resolved to love my brothers even when they fail to do something for me.

By the way, Paddy is still lifting us up to the high standards of living he observed in Australia. A few months ago after we laid Mum to rest, he had our mansion renovated. And he is very big on order and neatness. He has insisted that our refurbished mansion be kept scrupulously clean. No more does he want clutter in it.

Now that I am living in an inspiring environment - the kind I wish I grew up in - I believe that I will blossom as a writer and musician. So, my beloved reader, I exhort you to stay tuned to this blog for new stories and hymns as well as revised editions of my past blog posts. See ya!

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RECOMMENDATION: If you've enjoyed the above story about living in an inspiring environment, you might also enjoy another one entitled "Home Sweet Home" which I wrote more than four years ago. Just click on that link in blue to dive straight into the story.