Laam Laam Chung is a Year 12 student

I have completed the task of the maintenance of the library books. Through this activity, I reflected upon the consequences of each and every personal choice. This is because by maintaining the books, I saw some damaged areas and I thought about how although these books are offered to everyone in the ICHK community and it is shared property, each and every individual will still have the responsibility of taking care and treasuring these resources despite them not being a personal belonging.

We are constantly affected by the consequences of our choices, and this could be affected majorly from how we were brought up, the environment and our personal values. Public property was always a tool offered to everyone and to benefit the community, but I feel like sometimes it is because of this, many people exploit and take for granted these resources.

We must learn to respect and care for items that do not belong to us. I also thought about how society has become more and more materialistic and selfish, for example: not a lot of people respect public services, vandalizing public property and causing damage to the environment. I think that this is an important message for everyone to understand that the community is shared by everyone, and everyone has the responsibility to maintain and to look after it.

Similarly, this also goes with the environment and our planet, we must realise that we only have one Earth and one home, and we must learn to treasure each and everything given to us because not all of this will be here and will eventually disappear. This may be an exaggeration to maintaining a book, but I believe from taking small steps within our community, we can help spread this message and show the world the importance of reflecting upon the consequences of our own experience and how it will affect not only the people around us but also the environment.

A library is more than just a structure or a place, it acts as a symbol for endless wisdom, intelligence, knowledge, education and the opening to new pathways.