Sample Student Definition Essays
Listen to how Meg Ryan explains what love is in Addicted to Love. Use her graphic, grotesque, yet completely authentic and personal explanation as inspiration for your own “definition essay.”
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American Patriots: Soldiers, Citizens, Voters
The United States is presently at war in Iraq and Afghanistan where American troops are fighting and dying. At home, cars and homes display solid yellow or red, white, and blue ribbons that call for Americans to "Support Our Troops." It is patriotic for Americans to support their daughters and sons fighting in a war, but this patriotism does not mean that Americans must blindly support the decision to go to war. Being patriotic means that Americans must do the opposite: they must question their government. Questioning the government, voting, and respecting the rights of others are what make true patriots in a democratic society; blind following of one's government creates dictatorships.
The United States government is not perfect, as evidenced by its history. For example, the government sanctioned the institution of slavery, denied women the right to vote for nearly 150 years, and prolonged a war in Vietnam that the government leaders knew they couldn't win. Fortunately for the United States, in each of those cases, there were patriots that spoke out against what the United States was doing and brought about change. Without the abolitionist movement in the early nineteenth century, slavery may have existed far longer than it had already been allowed. Suffragettes from the late seventeenth century through 1920 gave women political equality--at least on paper. In more recent times, the protests of the 1960s finally led the United States to negotiate a peace long enough to get its troops out of Vietnam.
The above examples illustrate true patriotism. The government was wrong in its official positions, and the people who opposed those positions were right. Had those right-minded people not openly voiced their disapproval of what the government was doing, our history would not reflect the democratic principles it so publicly espouses. For a democracy to work, its citizens must keep informed and vocally express their approval and disapproval. The United States government should not proclaim that protestors are not patriotic. By their very act of thinking independently from the government, they are being true patriots.
People who agree with a government's actions are patriots as well--so long as their agreements are based on how they analyze what the government is doing and base their agreement on thought and not on blind obedience. For example, patriotic proponents of the war in Afghanistan base their support on the need to eliminate Al Qaeda and not on simply accepting that the war is correct because government leaders say it is. These supporters for the war are doing so because they have analyzed why American troops are fighting there and have decided that the government is right. Patriotism is based on analysis and reasoned thought; it is not based on blind obedience.
Questioning the government is one part of the definition of an American patriot; a second part is taking that analysis of the government and acting on it through voting. To put it simply, patriots vote. However, voting for the American patriot is not simply casting ballots; it is knowing about the issues and then casting ballots. To vote for Democrats or Republicans simply because the voter has always voted for that party or because the voter's family has always voted for that party is not being patriotic; it is again being blindly obedient. Voting requires knowledge of the candidates, knowledge of the issues, and ultimately an understanding of one's own stand on the issues. For example, in 1948, Thomas Dewey was predicted by nearly all news services to win the Presidential election over incumbent Harry Truman. However, when election day was over, Truman had won by over 2 million votes. What the news services didn't realize was that the United States was full of patriotic Americans who thought about their votes and didn't simply follow trends. Truman, a supporter of stronger civil rights legislation and fighting communism in Korea, won because Americans thought about those issues and voted accordingly (Blum et al. 772).
Voting is a patriotic act, but most patriots go beyond voting and actively participate in the elections by campaigning for preferred candidates or issues. Active involvement in elections by patriotic voters creates a stronger base for candidates, who otherwise have only themselves and paid staff on which to depend. American patriots are people who work for their country's good based on what they see as good for their country. Thus, when California citizens campaigned for Barbara Boxer in 1992 for the United States Senate, they were actively working for increased funding for crime prevention and paramedic training, two issues about which Boxer has been actively vocal (“The Issues”). These people were telling the rest of California that they believed that Boxer's work for these issues would make a better California and United States. Just as patriotic soldiers volunteered for the Continental Army in 1774 to create a new nation that would better their lives, so did patriotic soldier voters volunteer for the Boxer campaign in 1992 to create a better world. Patriots are voters and workers!
Lastly, and most importantly, patriots respect the rights of others and demonstrate by actively contributing to the equal rights of all Americans. One specific action that patriots perform is willingly paying taxes. Without tax income, the national, state, and local governments would not be able to function. People would go uneducated, hungry, and sick in a world without police protection, good roads, schools, and government-funded health care for those citizens who cannot afford it. Patriots may wish that they could have the tax money in their own pockets, but patriots also realize that this tax money is necessary for a country that must meet the needs of all its citizens. Paying taxes shows respect for the government and for its citizens through being an active contribution to a stable, democratic society.
Another specific patriotic action is showing respect for other cultures. Following the Al Qaeda terrorist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001, reports came in of individual attacks on Muslims and people of Arab heritage in the United States. A Pakistani store owner was killed in Dallas; two Egyptian-Americans were killed in separate incidents in California; and in Gary, Indiana, a man turned an assault rifle on an Yemeni-born United States citizen. In what is probably the worst incident, 300 Americans marched in Chicago in an anti-Arab parade, with one man proclaiming, “‘I’m proud to be an American, and I hate Arabs, and I always have’” (Robinson). Well, patriotic Americans are not proud of him. An American patriot understands that in a democratic nation, an entire group is not judged by the actions of a few individuals. If a group were to be judged by a few individuals, then all Caucasian, Christian Americans should be hated because the bombers at the Oklahoma Federal building were white, Christian, American citizens.
The traditional picture of an American patriot is of a soldier in uniform, proudly carrying the American flag and a rifle. But that picture falls seriously short of the true picture of an American patriot. The true picture would show millions of people, of all races and heritage, some carrying protest signs, some handing out campaign literature, and everyone carrying a ballot.
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Life, the Universe and Everything
Any discussion with life as the focus invariably brings with it a quagmire of questions and paradoxes; perhaps more than any one individual is capable of dealing with at a time. But what exactly is life? There are many possible definitions for life; after all, it encompasses everything we humans have ever known. The biological definition is the simplest. It states that life is anything that reproduces and is comprised of organic elements. The other definition is not nearly as straightforward, and will be explored further throughout this exercise in perspective. Since the infancy of recorded history and potentially before, men far more capable than I have wrestled with these same issues and still do to this day. In their rush to compact life down into a little box that can be summarized and quickly explained, people often times skim over the paradoxical or unexplainable things that separate us from the rest of the universe.
First and foremost, let‘s discuss the lengths humans go in order to preserve life. Most humans seem to understand that the preservation of life is important, though not all of them are sure why. Life is like a coin funnel at your typical children‘s museum. You place a penny on the rim and release it. The coin rolls around and around and around in a circular pattern, all the while gradually drawing ever closer to the black hole in the center. I distinctly remember trying to save my coin as a child by grabbing for it before it reached the center and pulling it out again for another run. More often than not, this attempt at salvaging the penny ends up knocking it off its path, sending it directly into the pit in the center. Though we take great measures to ensure that we as a species live longer, retain our good looks and stay healthy, the end result is identical to what it would have been had we not tampered with it in the first place.
If life is so fleeting, what makes it valuable? In order to understand this, we must first understand value. The concept of value does not exist by itself in nature; it is conferred upon things much in the same way that names are given to species of animals and geographic regions. The entire sun is worth no more than a single candle unless humans decide to assign value to it. Since value was created by humans, it is plain to see why human life is held in such high esteem by it. Let‘s take a look at value if it wasn‘t biased towards its inventors. How much is a single microscopic creature worth to you? A single bacterial cell? Probably not very much. I‘ll bet the penny from the funnel example on it. If we can justify blotting out thousands of innocent lives with a single drop of Purell, but still claim that the killing of a single human is unethical, how are we in any position to decide what lives and what dies? It is hypocrisy in its basest form. However, if we fretted every living moment about the tomato plant that we slaughtered for our lunch, we would not be very well off. While never ideal, it seems that sometimes hypocrisy is absolutely necessary for our survival.
In our current society, science is touted as the answer to everything. What was once attributed to acts of God are now hailed as orderly and natural procedures, willing to make themselves known to any soul who has the determination to seek them out. But in the cultural shift from religion to science, has anything truly changed? In both instances, the common people place their trust in a series of absolute truths, while a group of knowledgeable elite determine further authenticities. If there is one thing humans are bad at, it‘s dealing with uncertainty. Both science and religion are somewhat of a crutch for us humans to fall back on. In the days of our early childhood, our parents were always right about everything. We adopted their viewpoints.
Their mannerisms. Their core beliefs. But as we grew older and could better relate to them, we gradually realized that they were just as flawed and confused as we were. Many adults, still yearning for the early sense of absolute certainty they once enjoyed, cling to theology or physical laws as a way to bring a bit of order back into their chaotic lives.
At its very core, however, science is an attempt to reconcile humans with nature, to convert our flawed selves into something absolutely natural and logical. The ultimate goal of science is to produce eternal life, prosperity and happiness for all. However, like many other wonderful things in this world, there is a limit at which they cease to be beneficial, or even safe. A wonder-drug that allows life to continue infinitely is an example of one such tipping-point. It seems like the most wonderful thing in the world at first, but it would shake our society to the core. At first, the drug would probably be contained to a small elite group of wealthy individuals who can afford it. After a while, the general population would demand the drug for themselves, and would either obtain it many years later after the price dropped, or, infuriated by the concept of immortal overlords ruling over them for generations, they would seize the drug for themselves via revolution. Some groups of people might object to the use of the drug for religious reasons, but to most people, the promise of immortality would be too tantalizing to pass up. An uprising of this scale would disrupt the entire societal infrastructure, and would probably end up destroying our system of creating and maintaining food. Roving bands of starving raiders would roam the countryside, pillaging farms and stockpiles for everything and anything they contained. In the end, overpopulation would probably not do us in, as we would kill ourselves through war and conflict over the drug before we ever reached a stage at which full exhaustion of earth‘s resources would be possible. Science is like Flintstone‘s vitamins: a bit here and there will help you greatly, but the entire bottle won‘t settle nearly as well.
Like anything else, life is incredibly simple until you begin to ponder it in depth. As a species, we are so immersed in tradition and familiarity that it can be very difficult to meditate on certain questions that go against everything that we have ever known. However, some of these long-held beliefs are instrumental in our survival as a species, logical or not. To be correct and justified in your actions at all times is an exercise in futility. Instead of forcing ourselves to view everything under a lens of pure logic, perhaps it would be better if we were to embrace some of the apparent ―flaws‖ that make us what we are. Maybe we should stop searching for the meaning and purpose of life and just enjoy it for what it is. Believe what you want to believe, live how you want to live. We will all return to the logical, unemotional, unthinking dust soon enough, so perhaps we should embrace our irrationality while we still can.
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Home Is Where the Heart Is
My house doesn‘t look like much from the outside—something about the way the roof is shaped reminds me of a barn. And whoever painted it had a horrible sense of color. Red bricks and maroon shutters clash with baby blue siding and garage doors. From the outside, I hate it. I was unhappy when we moved in, because the house just looks old and lame and weird. But now, almost six years later, I can‘t imagine living anywhere else. I‘ve grown attached. My house isn‘t just a house anymore. Now, it‘s a home: a place that holds memories, both good and bad; a place where I am comfortable enough to burst into song or dance around like a crazy person; a place where I can feel safe and happy. Technically, the word home describes a place, but in actuality it defines an emotion. Quite simply, home is where the heart is.
Home is a tantalizing concept. As Charles Dickens once wrote, ―Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration.” The strength of the word comes from the way it tempts us. Each one of us craves the atmosphere of a home. Each of us craves love that is ever-present, even though fights, jealousy, and anger weave their way through that love sometimes. These emotions creep into even the happiest of households, but this negativity does not shape a home. A true home is a place where you can alternately relax or explore, a place where you can find yourself and in doing so, find happiness. Ultimately, as Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, ―He is happiest, be he king or peasant, who finds peace in his home.
Not every house is a home, and not every home must be only in a house. I come from two lands, two homes. One is in the American south, the other in the Indian north. Both my homes boast mountains. Here, the Appalachians dip and rise. Tree-covered, they are green in summer, ablaze in fall. They are gentle, with rounded tops: friendly mountains that hug the sky. There, the Himalayas soar up from the rice fields of the valley, their snow-covered peaks reflected in clear icy lakes. They are majestic despite the roiling clouds of instability swirling around the peaks.
Sometimes, I feel like having two homes is a curse, as Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, did when he said, ―I have become a queer mixture of the East and the West, out of place everywhere, at home nowhere.‖ In each of my homes, you can tell that I don‘t quite fit in; you can tell that I‘m different. Here, I‘m that girl who dresses weirdly, the one who isn‘t American enough. There, I‘m the American, the girl who is free to escape the conflict and shootings. I am a ghost between these worlds.
I sink into this murky, in-between, unsure state sometimes, but realization always pulls me out again. I am not alone in this struggle for identity. Everyone feels unsure at times, and at some point, every single person feels out of place, as if he or she doesn‘t belong. But the places that we do feel comfortable – those are our homes.
When I remember this, I remember that I am lucky to be a part of both of these worlds, as different as they are. I am a hybrid, but that only means that I feel equally comfortable texting in English or chatting in Urdu. I was happy last week when I watched a hilarious video on YouTube with one of my friends. I was happy last year when I listened to my great-grandmother‘s life stories. Through these people and others, I am connected to both my homes.
This connection tethers me. When times get tough and I drown in sadness or loneliness or nostalgia, I can reach out to the people I care about in each of my homes. I can rely on my parents and siblings in my house, but my homes encompass many more people than that. I have friends, grandparents, cousins, aunts and uncles to climb both sets of mountains with me. Both my homes are beautiful, and these are the people that point out the beauty to me when I cannot see it myself. We all need a support system, as John Donne realized when he wrote, ―No man is an island. And because we are not islands nor robots nor zombies, we need human emotions like compassion and trust, and those emotions start in our homes.
Here and there, I have climbed the mountains, looked at the valleys below, and come out stronger for it, secure in the knowledge of where I belong. I belong at home, the place where I feel comfortable and safe and happy. Home is a quilt that wraps around me to keep me safe and warm, each square a different memory. A few of the pieces seem random or out of place, snapshots of moments that don‘t quite belong. Some of the squares are red or grey – colors of anger or sadness – but there is love in each of the stitches that holds my quilt together. In the end, love always leads me home.
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Fashion
When I was in the fourth grade, the typical high school castes of beauty and popularity were already beginning to plague our innocent youth. We all knew who was popular, who was pretty. Suddenly, no one cared about sharing crayons or being Rainbow Rug partners. The only thing that mattered was appearance. We may not have talked about it, but we all knew. I began losing my closest childhood friend to a new crowd of girls- tiny teenagers, with silky hair and tight jeans, already beginning to coat their eyelashes with thick, black mascara. On the surface, I desperately wanted to be them; I wanted to be one of those girls. I soon realized that my short, curly hair and bushy eyebrows would not fit into such a mold. The only thing left to my control was my clothing choice: fashion. I could be in line with those girls, if only for a moment, with similar jeans and sweatshirts. Dressing in their fashion gave me a sense of normalcy, a hope that maybe I could be as likable and as beautiful as those girls. Little did I know my ten-year old hopes and dreams would evolve into something much greater.
As I grew into my awkward middle school years, I continued this mentality about fashion. I shopped at the same stores. I even bought the same clothing. When I went shopping, I didn‘t buy what I liked, I bought what those girls liked, as I still dreamt of becoming one of them. I persisted, although my attempts were obviously not working. I was still the same person inside, with the same interests and the same friends.
Towards the end of middle school, as I matured emotionally and mentally, I came to the realization that wearing certain clothes could not make people fall in love with me. Clothing and social status are related, but not dependent upon one another. Simultaneously, I started to notice that my interest in choosing my clothing had become far more genuine than I had once intended. I began to think about fashion constantly. My mind was endlessly buzzing with prints, patterns, garments, and accessories. I enjoyed talking about fashion more than I ever had, and my main concern when getting ready in the mornings was ―How can I make this outfit more unique?‖ My interest in being fashion-forward was slowly, but surely, taking priority over my interest in being one of those girls. I began to sort through the science of those girls. They may be visually beautiful and likable, but many of them lack authentic content. I would pick intellect over perfectly flat-ironed hair any day of the week.
Like my long-lived obsession with becoming one of those girls, we, as a culture, scour the pages of high-fashion magazines. We covet Louis Vuitton handbags. We drool over Christian Louboutin stilettos. We dream of expensive Italian leather goods. We spend our time thinking, hoping, and praying that if we had these expensive, visually appealing things, people might like us more, people might love us more, we might even become one of those girls. We hunger for these expensive, beautiful things, because we are unhappy. Unhappiness will never be sincerely cured by fixing our externals.
In today‘s culture, fashion has many definitions. Webster‘s defines it as ―a popular trend, especially in styles of dress and ornament or manners. As Coco Chanel said ―Fashion is in the sky, and in the street. But in my book, fashion means so much more. Considering the basic definition of fashion, my personal attitudes have certainly evolved. But this evolution has bled into nearly every other aspect of my life. The lines between my political, religious, and cultural views, along with my views regarding fashion have blurred. It‘s a vat of thought constantly brewing with ideas and inspirations. Fashion can be extension of our personalities, our viewpoints. Fashion can be a materialization of our opinions. Fashion can be an art form. But only if we let it, as I have learned emerging into my teenage girlhood.
Now, as an eleventh-grader, the foregoing classes of beauty and popularity are present as ever, but my attitudes have changed. Fashion has different definition. I slick on coats of tomato-red lipstick without hesitation, pinning a half-dozen silk flowers into my hair has become a daily occurrence, and a fish-shaped handbag seems to be the obvious choice.
I choose my clothing like I choose the elements of a painting or drawing. Fashion is my preferred art medium. Yes, one could say I have a ―passion for fashion, as cliché as it may be. These days, this passion is evident in my appearance and actions, but none truly know of its history. Fashion is a necessity. It‘s an addiction. I live it, and I breathe it. Ironically enough, the one thing consistently running through every fiber of my being was created in the midst of every belief I now reject.
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The Tears of a Clown: Molding A Mask
Happy, sad, embarrassed, and confident. Clowns spend hours a day painting on a face. But not everyone that wears a mask makes a profession out of it. The traditional definition of a mask is a covering worn on the face to conceal one‘s identity. A mask is a tool meant to conceal the wearer from the shames and pains of this world. Love is the only thing that takes off masks, which we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.
We fear that we cannot live without our masks. I rise. I paste on a smile that stretches a little too far. I clean my mouth to mask my teeth. I put on clothes to mask my nakedness. I put on mascara to mask the pain in my eyes, concealer to mask the pain in my cheeks. I walk downstairs and eat a moderate amount of breakfast to mask my dietary hunger. I ride to school and get out of the car. In the thirty seconds it takes me to reach the door of Brentwood High School, I have put on a completely new, sickly sweet mask. This mask is much more intricate. This mask has been broken down before and will never be broken down again. This mask has a cavalcade of colors, distracting feathers, glitter that catches the light, and dark spots that absorb it. When I was five, this mask allowed me to wait until I got home to cry the first time I was ever bullied. When I was seven, this mask allowed me to tell my first lie. When I was nine, this mask allowed me to keep my face expressionless after being told one of my strongest role models had Alzheimer‘s and would soon forget who I was. When I was ten, this mask allowed me to pretend like I did not notice no one saved a spot for me at the lunch table. When I was twelve, this mask allowed me to force a smile onto my face after being called fat for the first time. When I was thirteen, this mask allowed me to pretend like everything was fine the day after the mom of one of my best friends committed suicide. When I was fifteen, this mask allowed me to come to keep coming back to school during the hardest year of my life. Now that I am sixteen, this mask serves many functions. It gracefully molds my face into a smile, a sneer, an attentive stare, all the while holding back tears. It allows me to avoid the stares you get when you cry in public. It allows me to dodge the awkwardness after someone you barely know asks you what the matter is. I would not be able to live without my mask, but I also know I cannot live within it.
The mask, the thing that shields me from showing what I feel inside on the outside, is my best friend, but also my worst enemy. My mask protects and consumes me, fulfills me and leaves me empty. At my core, I am passionate. I am insecure. I am broken. However, my mask shows that I am apathetic. My mask exudes confidence. My mask gives the illusion that I am still in one piece. If I were to continue living within the mask forever, I would become the mask and the mask would become me. I would not be able to ever truly expose myself. I would be living a lie to protect the image others had of me.
There comes a time when we cannot remove our mask without removing some of our own skin. The mask grows into our faces and will not release us without a fight. We cannot live within our masks. A mask is meant to conceal the wearer, not define the wearer. When I was three years old, I had a Dalmatian obsession. I absolutely loved everything about Dalmatians. I had a tendency of dressing in spots, woofing sporadically, eating on the floor, and falling asleep in front of ―101 Dalmatians. If my parents had allowed for me to continue believing I was a spot-covered canine, this habit would have most likely continued on into my teen years. However, they forced to me acknowledge that the dog days were over. I was not a dog and I would never become a dog. I was simply pretending to be a dog. I am still living within my mask; it is just more socially acceptable. The only thing that can remove a mask ingrown so deeply is love.
Love is the scalpel that removes the things we were not created to be from the things that we can become. I do not care what age you are, what race you are, what kind of car you drive, or how you spend your free time. You crave love. You want someone (or something) that can slowly cut your mask back, bit by bit. Love brings comfort to the afflicted and hope to the hopeless. Love is trust, beauty, and compassion. For some people, they find love in religion. Christianity brings love to those who have fallen down the hardest and welcomes maskless losers with open arms. For some, this means late night weekends. Alcohol brings temporary comfort to a distressed soul that is trying to hide the pain. Though I have tried these scalpels among many others, I have not found one sharp enough to cut the mask completely from my face yet. I am still searching for the love that allows my mask to fall to the floor in a molting process of lies and shame. Everyone must seize hold of their own life and discover what inspires them to reveal the deepest parts of the soul.
We cannot live without or within our masks and compassion is the only hope we have of escaping them. I live in masquerade. I'm living within a festival where others around me are only who I perceive them to be and I am only what others perceive me to be. It has become a reality where self-identity is lost and I am just starting to find out who I am behind my assortment of imaginary masks. And now I ask you reader, listener, friend, enemy, teacher, lover, hater, acquaintance. What are you hiding?
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Strength
The day I watched my daddy‘s car pull out of the driveway, the tires of his Benz screeching as he sped off leaving me behind, I learned the true meaning of strength. My father couldn‘t handle the pressures of a breaking family, so he ran. I had been sitting on the ledge of roofing outside my bedroom window, my mother‘s frustrated cries leaked through the master bedroom door and carried throughout the house only to fall dead upon my numb ears, I imagined my forlorn little sister, then only 5 years old, was off hiding in her room completely ignorant as to what had caused the tension that was coursing through the surrounding atmosphere. A seemingly simple thought passed through my mind as the dust clouds of confused emotions swirling around violently in my head began to settle almost simultaneously with those on the driveway and adjacent gravel road, ―I must be strong. These four simple words caused within me an epiphany of sorts that landed on my frozen tundra of numb brain those words, like dominos sent my thoughts escalating into a raging flood of understanding that tore through my soul, like a tornado would an open corn field. It became clear that to be strong didn‘t just mean that I would have to carry the fifty-pound bags of grain down to feed the sheep and chickens by myself or that I had to start working out so that I could single handedly fight off all the burglars that were just waiting to attack my mother, sister, and I. No even though physical strength is a great quality it is simply that, physical strength‘. I would like to see someone try and protect their mind from turmoil using just their biceps. To be truly strong one must be able to stand against pain, confusion, lies and most importantly self-upheaval.
Sports hold within their grasp a great many strong people. You must be thinking, ―Wait a moment, she was just saying to be strong wasn‘t physical strength. ―Where‘s she going with this? Well, allow me to elaborate for you. There are not necessarily types of strength, such as mental or physical, there exists but one strength. What I am saying is that most human beings commonly perceive strength as physical. This is a gross restricted definition, for the true meaning of strength, though including a physical quality, goes far beyond such one trivial meaning—so far deeper that it touches to the barest of your soul. Many athletes are physically endowed with muscle mass that allows them to execute certain forms of physical marvels, but this is not wherein their strength really lies, it is their determination to gain that physique, their triumph over physical pain, and most fundamental their persistence in the face of uncertainty that claims them this sought after title. The high-school boy entangled in the arms of his opponent fights to gain a lead—even when his face is dragged and bloodied across the slick, wrestling mat. Our human tendencies sway us to turn away from hardship. It is those who master the art of perseverance who deserve the title of strong. I found myself, as I sat on my rooftop haven, at a point where I could choose to either to give up or fight to untie the cords of torment that had firmly tied my heart behind the car that was speeding away. Unbeknownst to the driver, my little heart dragged across sharp gravel rocks tearing to shreds. I made the choice, to cut the threads.
He is sitting at a bar only thirty years old, mistakes have torn him apart, with an aching heart he drinks the strong beverages that are continuously placed before him, his only dream is to escape from the lies that follow his every heartbeat. He is not strong, it wouldn‘t matter if he was a boxing champion, without the ability to face hardship and take responsibility for his actions, he is only a lumpy fat man who can lift great objects or smash someone‘s face in, what good is any of those abilities if the tide of insanity is ebbing at your mind. What happens when things fall apart and you don‘t have the strength to overcome? Then your mind will deteriorate and you will join the mass of weaklings that walk wretched, mindless on the face of the earth.
We have within us so many raging emotions, all fighting for the dominant position within our minds, this must not happen, I find serenity is the one emotion that leaves the holder of it free to think, the only difficulty is that serenity is the most difficult to obtain. Just as the soccer player chases after the ball aiming for a goal so must those who wish for strength chase after clarity of mind, the field is only so long, the goal will be eventually reached. I myself am fully determined to forever cling to that peace in the face of utter chaos that comforted me so long ago.
Feelings, no not the kind kindergarteners shout about when their playmate steals their toy, ―You hurt my feelings! But rather the kind that, when allowed, can change our very lives because of their influence over our decisions. It is imperative for a person who wishes to overcome the trials and tribulations that fall in their path in life, to learn how to detach themselves from feelings. I‘m not saying that strong people are emotionless zombies, hardly, they just know how not to drown in their feelings. Morrie Shwartz explains this well I think, he explains, "If you hold back on the emotions--if you don't allow yourself to go all the way through them--you can never get to being detached, you're too busy being afraid." See, it‘s as simple as that—feel the emotion, recognize it, and then move on. If you wallow in the feeling it will eventually encase you in its never-ending black whole and you will be forever lost. I don‘t recommend this for anyone. I‘m highly doubtful of it being in any way enjoyable, I hear black holes are quite scary.
When things fall apart I can‘t help but stand back and look from a separate perspective. I always end up smiling because in the end we can only be as strong as our own self restrictions. So, maybe strength is also the ability to understand one‘s self clearly. It is undoubtedly clarity of mind, certainly understanding emotions, and standing strong even when in pain. I find we all have lessons that we learn in our childhoods that are necessary in order to achieve our full potential later in life. Of course everyone‘s lesson is specific to them, but think about it wouldn‘t that be what writing is for to share with our generations and those after us some little wisdom that we have discovered. Must everyone discover what it‘s like to lose their father in order to realize the meaning of strength? No, they don‘t. It may seem like true strength is a difficult thing to gain, this is a false allusion, and your mind is lying. Every person can have peace, control their emotions, understand their motives, even get muscled up. The only difference is making the choice to pursue these qualities that are strength.
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A Life or Death Decision
Are you brave enough to take a life? For most people that answer is no. Why do people think it is okay for abortion to be legal then? Don‘t they know that a true living being is getting killed? ―If it isn‘t a baby, then you aren‘t pregnant, so what are you aborting? (Anonymous). Abortion is the only medical operation where the outcome is supposed to be death. The thought that abortion controls overpopulation is absurd because the two have nothing to do with each other, since abortion has been around longer than overpopulation.
How you abort a baby is (if in the first trimester) by injecting a medicine that numbs and dilates the cervix. After the cervix is dilated a hollow tube with a knife-edged tip is inserted into the womb and then connected to a vacuum that is 29 times more powerful than a common household vacuum. This vacuum tears the fetus and placenta into small pieces that are sucked through the tube into a bottle and then discarded. That is the most popular method because women come in pregnant, fall asleep, and then wake up without the burden of a baby.
That type of abortion, called Suction Aspiration, usually happens in the first twelve weeks. This is after the baby has developed eyes, eyelids, hair, and a tongue. Babies have also started to jump, suck their thumbs, squint, frown, and swallow. Since people can‘t see this they tend to not think about the fact that this is a real baby who is relying on someone they haven‘t ever met. This is the ultimate trust. Even if you don‘t believe that God is entrusting you with this precious life, you must believe in the baby that is trusting you to bring them into the world and protect them from the harm that would befall them if they were to mature on their own.
Abortion is killing. The mother might as well be a mob boss that ordered a hit on their own baby. That is what they are doing. They are having someone else remove a nuisance from their life so that their hands don‘t get dirty. While you might say that they are just Pro-Choice, isn‘t that just a synonym for Pro-Death?
Suppose that two women get pregnant on the same day. Six months later woman A has her baby prematurely. The baby is healthy and is going to continue to live with a bit of monitoring. Woman B still hasn‘t had her baby. One week after woman A has her baby both woman decide that they don‘t want their baby. According pro-abortionists woman B doesn‘t have to have her baby because it happens to still be inside her even though it could have a healthier lifestyle than baby A that was born prematurely. The argument for pro-abortionists is that it is okay to kill a person that hasn‘t seen the light of day.
Some pro-abortionists say that the unborn may be human but it isn‘t a person. This makes me wonder what the definition of human and person is. According to Webster‘s, they are synonyms of each other. In fact, the definition of person has the word human in it. Nine times out of ten the description of what the difference between a person and a human is describes some people that are already born like the mentally handicapped, the senile, or those in a coma. This means that pro-abortionists would be alright with killing one group of people for any reason. Are there any other groups of people that are also non-persons‘? That is starting to sound like anti-Semitism.
Imagine that you are waiting for Santa on Christmas Eve. You‘ve got a bunch of cookies ready for him and a bunch of carrots for his reindeer. You‘re sitting at the window anxiously waiting for the big man to come by. You are about to fall asleep when you hear a muffled thump come from outside. Now you start to freak out. Santa is right next door! In a blaze of motion you have picked up the tray of cookies and carrots, gotten a glass of milk, and now you are standing right outside the chimney waiting for him to come down. You are standing there for a little bit when you hear another muffled thump. This thump should be coming from your house though shouldn‘t it? Why does it sound so far away? You head over to the window to check on Santa only to find that he is next door, making somebody else happy. Are you imagining how it would feel? That epic excitement of getting so close to something you‘ve been preparing for and then the total let down of it passing you by. Aborted babies never get to feel the excitement of waiting for Santa because he has ‗already passed them by‘.
Do you think about the consequences of an abortion on your own life before you get one? Have you thought about the mental toll that this will have on you? What about the memory of the baby that could have been yours? Why are people ashamed about the fact that they got an abortion? Maybe because they know that what they did was wrong. What would you say to someone who walked up to you and said ―I had an abortion.‖? It isn‘t what somebody would do because people are ashamed of abortions. They don‘t want anybody to know that they aren‘t perfect. They don‘t want people thinking that they messed up or that they are weird.
The problem with abortion is that somebody had an idea that got published. To quote Ronald Reagan, ―I have noticed that everyone for abortion has already been born. Some people consider abortion as getting rid of a problem, but you aren‘t getting rid of problem, you‘re getting rid of a part of yourself.
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The Ugly in the Beautiful
If only I were as beautiful as her, I contemplate while watching the Miss America pageant. The contestants saunter across the stage with a sudden air about them. They appear almost godlike. Men are tightly wrapped around their little fingers and every young woman smiles at them suppressing their jealousy. The contestants are beautiful, but only the most beautiful contestant will take home the prize, but who is to say who is the most beautiful? Does everyone view beauty with the same eyes? Is beauty based on outer materials, like evening gown or swimsuits, or is it based off of matters deeper than skin exposed? An anonymous writer proclaims, ―Beauty is not real. Beauty only exists in the perception. The belief in beauty is solely based on our senses, and thus it proves to be a difficult concept to grasp. Beauty lies in the eyes of the spectator, but not every viewer is the same; therein lays the ugly in the beautiful.
I brush past them every day, not realizing their true beauty. They sit on my countertop with their tips in the water and everyday they continue to blossom and fill the house with a delicate fragrance. Very simple and elegant all at the same time, flowers bloom in a fashion that is pleasing to the eye and soothing to the soul. At first glances the flower seems quite simple, but a second look reveals just how intricate and detailed the petals are. There is something about watching growth occur before our eyes that makes us see beauty in even the little things from a flower growing to a young child coming into their own. We see them change, but we never take into account just how spectacular this process is. This developmental route is often overlooked, but when looked at closer, people begin to realize just how marvelous and captivating it all really is.
As people grow and mature, they begin to determine what they view as beautiful, but not all views are created equal. A United States citizen and a Middle Easterner will both define beauty in different ways because they were both raised to see beauty according to the teachings of their culture. In America, the beautiful people tend to be the celebrities that the public looks up to, while in the Middle East beauty can be found in the face of an innocent child or a woman in the traditional garments. Both are viewed as beautiful in someone‘s eyes. However, the modesty often involved in Middle Eastern clothing seems quite beautiful to me because it proves how devoted the people are to their religion and culture and the simplicity of the garments reveals the natural beauty of every person. We strive in society today to cover up our flaws, but I strongly believe that our flaws make us beautiful. Everyone makes mistakes and we cannot always look our best. True beauty will come to those that accept themselves for who they are and not determined consent to society‘s views.
The American public today holds the misconception that beauty can only be found in celebrities. We often dote on their striking appearances, but just like every human, each celebrity is beautiful in his or her own way. A beautiful celebrity can vary from the feminine pop vocalist Leona Lewis to the bold mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carano. These women are viewed as beautiful due to the courage, determination, and appearances they give off, but their beauties can quickly change in today‘s society. If one bad picture or report of them slips into the magazines, they quickly slip down from the status of beautiful. They lose the title of the most desired woman and easily gain the unwanted label of the most repulsive woman. Beauty is often short-lived, but the reserved beauties in history have proven to stick around. The National Geographic Society magazine proved this point by publishing the photograph of a young Afghan refugee in their June 1985 issue. Seeing the fear in the girl‘s eyes, face-to-face, the readers suddenly felt compassion for her. Her valor and strength, in the midst of all she faced within the troubled Middle East gave her a look of beauty no amount of time or cultural perceptions could take away. Upon viewing this picture, I began to develop my view of what beauty, and I discovered that beauty is always allusive, never easy to decipher, but always recognizable when finally spotted.
According to Merriam-Webster‘s dictionary, beauty is any quality that gives pleasure to the senses, but we all do not use the same senses at the same time. We see things that others around us might no see and as a result beauty is overlooked every day. A simple change in the lighting can make the difference between the uplifted and the downturned. This frequent adjustment in beauty tends to cause hostilities as people strive to earn this privileged title. We crave the attention being beautiful gives us and we will do anything to satisfy this need. The word itself seems to have an immense amount of power in society, and for such a simple word, it proves to cause several intricate feelings.
Beauty is transitory and like helpless puppies, we mindlessly chase after it. We seek the attention and feelings that beauty gives us, even though, the view of what is beautiful and what is not varies throughout the world. We constantly strive to be beautiful even though we are all different. The concepts of beauty will never be fully grasped by the human race, and we will constantly strive to attain it. The sooner we as a human race realize that beauty is all around us, the quicker we will stop chasing it.