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essays about self discovery
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Self Discovery
“What are you going to do after you get your degree?”Whenever I announce my
occupation, this trite, well-intentioned question never fails to follow. I am a student, a senior at Metro, studying Literature and History. Not only a student, I am a mother, wife, daughter, sister, friend and female. No, I don’t bring in a paycheck, but my life is fulfilling, gratifying, deserving and challenging. Will I teach, write, join the downtown business crew again, or become a clerk in the bookstore? Maybe I will. Whatever I do, I know I will strive to be a bit more patient, observing the tiniest of details, attempting to be more considerate and understanding of people, honoring their backgrounds and culture.
While studying English and History, I have obtained a clearer sense of being. I
have repeatedly professed that my family and faith prioritize my life, however, I often
found that the chaos of establishing a career and pursuing the ‘American Dream’ clashed
with those values. Caught in a whirlwind, life was centered around the present, focusing
on the future, without the time or necessity to reflect on the past. The study of liberal arts has opened new windows to the past in my mind, allowing the wisdom and thoughts of many great people circulate and stimulate my efforts, giving credence to many of life’s blessings and insecurities. The struggles, discoveries, confessions, and pronouncements of those who are forged in history often apply to modern day life relationships. A fellow classmate, very intuitively, remarked that my writing always reflects back to my personal life. The impact of history and literature on my life, explains the gift I have found in my studies.
Socrates (469-399 B.C.), a professional teach...
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... and to idle, but I will try to keep an open mind! The study of literature requires critical reading, understanding the background of the author, being cognizant of the historical culture in which the author wrote to fully comprehend the statement being made. I believe when I finally nail the hole on the study wall when hanging my degree next to that of my husband and daughter, I will apply the skills learned in my Liberal Arts education to my every day life and acquaintances.
WORKS CITED
Hollister, C. Warren. Medieval Europe – A Short History. USA:The McGraw-Hill Co.,
1998.
Thoreau, Henry David. “Walden.” The Norton Anthology – American Literature. Ed.
Nina Baym. USA:W.W. Norton & Co. 1998. 1768-1820.
Woolf, Virginia. “A Room of One’s Own.” The Longman Anthology – British Literature.
Ed. David Damrosch. USA: Addison-Wesley Ed. Publ., 1999. 2465-2499.
Strasberg SM (2008). "Acute Calculous Cholecystitis". New England Journal of Medicine 358 (26): 2804–2811. doi: 10.1056/NEJMcp0800929. PMID 18579815
A brilliant storyteller during the mid-twentieth century, Flannery O'Connor wrote intriguing tales of morality, ethics and religion. A Southern writer, she wrote in the Southern Gothic style, cataloging thirty-two short stories; the most well known being “A Good Man is Hard to Find.”
In modern times, the importance of liberal arts is questioned. The article “Myth: A Liberal Arts Education is Becoming Irrelevant” by Carol T. Christ makes the argument that a liberal arts education provides a broader range of knowledge which is useful because it produces a critically thinking student. Obtaining a career is the main focus of college education. Knowing this, Christ emphasizes how a liberal arts education is useful when looking for employment. She refutes the conception that a liberal arts education is irrelevant in today’s society by identifying the useful qualities it provides the employers look for such as, “Flexibility, creativity, critical thinking, strong communication skills (particulary writing)” (Christ,
One of the most memorable lines from “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” comes from the Misfit when he says, “She would have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her for every minute of her life (O’Connor 309).” Flannery O’Connor’s depiction of Christian faith can be seen in almost all of her works. Inevitably, the plots in all of O’Connor’s stories end with a shocking conclusion, and this leaves the reader with freedom to interpret the central idea. From the endless list of themes that O’Connor embeds into her stories, “A Good Man Is Hard To Find” is largely influenced by divine grace, hypocrisy, bitter reality, and white supremacy.
The search for one’s true identity is a difficult journey. One must track their ancestors, research their heritage, and correctly synthesize all of their gathered information into that specific identity. This journey is especially hard for African Americans whose ancestors were stolen from their native land. They have a desire to reconnect with their origins; however, their search is often hindered due to the fact that their ancestors were stolen. In an attempt to reconnect with this lost heritage, many African Americans in the 1960s and 1970s participated in the Black Nationalist Movement where they were able to claim a general African identity. This search for identity is shown in “Everyday Use” by Alice Walker. Through her text, Walker highlights two perspectives on true African American identity: those who understood and accepted their identity as an African American and those who desired to know their African ancestry. This idea is supported through various sources including scholarly journals, critical articles, and educational Internet web pages. In Alice Walker’s short story, “Everyday Use”, Walker uses characterization, themes, and symbolism to show that the differing perspectives for true African American identity caused a disconnection in African American heritage during the 1960s and 1970s.
Flannery O’Connor gave a talk about “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” in 1963 at Hollins College, Virginia, which was published as the essay, “The Element of Suspense In ‘A Good Man Is Hard to Find.’” In this essay, O’Connor defined the reasons for using violence in her stories. To establish a basis of reason within the story, O’Connor stated “Much of my fiction takes its character from a reasonable use of the unreasonable, though the reasonableness may not always be apparent. The assumptions that underlie . . . are those of the central Christian mysteries” ("Suspense" 803). O’Connor placed her characters in seemingly unreasonable situations as a means of creating a sublime experience. Her beliefs were strongly evident in the collected body of her fiction. She commented that, “Belief, in my own case, is the engine that makes perception operate” ("Suspense" 803). Perhaps the strongest influence on her writing was her illness with lupus. O’Connor’s struggles with being ill and facing death certainly affected the creation of the characters who awaited a moment of grace.
“Hence you see why “liberal studies” are so called; it is because they are studies worthy of a free- born gentlemen. But there is only one really liberal study – that which gives a man his liberty. It is the study of wisdom”, said Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the Roman Stoic philosopher who lived during the time of Jesus Christ. Historically speaking, learning liberal arts we learn ourselves to be passionate, loyal, brave and what is more important, generous. The word “freedom” has been the fundamental component of any American Dream. Today we celebrate our nation’s independence and allowance to govern ourselves.
The Awakening, written by Kate Chopin, tells the story of one woman’s path to finding self-discovery. Edna Pontellier, the lady, who transforms herself from an obedient housewife to a person who is alive with strength of character and emotions which she no longer has to repress. How an individual’s true nature could conflict with societal expectations is revealed. It deals with the day-to-day realities that a woman may face if she chooses to pursue her own needs and desires that do not fit with what society expects. To remain true to one’s conviction a woman must have relentless strength and courage. This metamorphosis is shaped by her surroundings. Just as her behavior is more shocking and horrifying because of her position in society, it is that very position which causes her to feel restrained and makes her yearn to rebel. Yet, this story shows how the good and bad that comes along with choosing to live outside of society norms. Another point that Chopin makes is how devalued a husband can make a wife feel. This treatment could lead to a woman finding and pursuing different desires that she would not have otherwise pursued. In The Awakening, Kate Chopin’s main character, Edna Pontellier is “awakened” to a desire to live a life free of the accountability of her existing life as a wife, mother, and a homemaker in order to be the independent woman that realizes she wants to be. She awakens first to a discontentment in her life, then to a mental awakening, to the passion of music and art, to the pleasure of her own body, and finally, to boundaries that she no longer wishes uphold. For Edna that was a life of solitude, which was unbearable for her to accept. Chopin reveals how a person can gradually become affected by her enviro...
The cloud storage services are important as it provides a lot of benefits to the healthcare industry. The healthcare data is often doubling each and every year and consequently this means that the industry has to invest in hardware equipment tweak databases as well as servers that are required to store large amounts of data (Blobel, 19). It is imperative to understand that with a properly implemented a cloud storage system, and hospitals can be able to establish a network that can process tasks quickly with...
“ I read and understood by myself all the books that I could find on the so-called liberal arts, for in those days I was a good-for-nothing and a slave to sordid ambitions. But what advantage did I gain from them? I read them with pleasure, but I did not kno...
Do people ever know enough about themselves to determine the direction of their career journey? Various strategies have been developed to provide guidance toward this end; however, as the realities of work change due to such factors as global competition and new technologies, it is necessary to develop new awareness of self in relation to work. This Digest examines various processes by which learners of all ages, elementary to adult, can expand their self-knowledge--their interests and the importance of those interests to their personal satisfaction, their strength and weaknesses in relation to their interests, and the ways in which their interests and abilities are applicable in the changing social, economic, and work environments.
“The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is one of my favorite poems for many reasons, but recently it has started to gain new meaning as I face graduation. I have started to wonder how different my life would be if I had only chosen to travel down one road instead of sprinting down both roads at the same time. When I declared my biology major, my dad expressed concern that I was choosing one possible life and career over another possibility. He said he knew how happy writing made me and he wondered if I was doing the right thing in not pursuing that. He spoke the words I had not yet spoken out loud for myself. “You shouldn’t enter college worried about what you will do when you exit,” said David Rubenstein, co-founder of the Carlyle Group, at a World Economic Forum panel discussion last week on the state of the humanities. Rubenstein’s words are true now and they were true then: I should not have worried about choosing so soon. After I arrived at Columbia College, I began taking English courses because I could not take biology courses without at least trying to explore my passion for literature and creative writing. Thanks to time at Columbia College, I started to see the value the required courses of the WPDM major more because of what they taught me about myself than what they taught me about the subject matter. Combined with my classes, my internship experiences have confirmed that I am indeed heading in the right direction. I could not become a successful writer and biologist without the valuable set of skills that I have gained through my time at Columbia College. I believe I made the right choice by choosing both roads.
The Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor is one of the worst atrocities of this century. The occupation has claimed the lives of over 200,000 Timorese people, one-third of the original population. It continues in defiance of the United Nations Security Council which has twice called on Jakarta to withdraw "without delay" as well as eight General Assembly Resolutions. It has been maintained with the help of the United States. East Timor, occupies the eastern half of the island of Timor, which lies between Indonesia and Australia (approximately 300 miles north of Darwin), East Timor is has lots of mountains and is culturally diverse. There are 12 main language groups in East Timor. Today, Tetun is the main East Timorese language with Portuguese spoken among older generations and Bahasa Indonesia among the young. A former Portuguese colony, East Timor is recognized by the United Nations as a non-self-governing territory due for decolonization. It was on the agenda of the U.N. agenda long before Indonesia invaded and has been the subject of on and off negotiations, mediated by the U.N. Secretary-General between Portugal and Indonesia since 1983. These talks resulted in the Tripartite agreement to allow a vote on an Indonesian plan to grant East Timor a degree of autonomy. That Indonesia government has agreed that if the East Timorese reject autonomy in the U.N.-organized vote, it will repeal its annexation of East Timor. A U.N.-supervised transition to independence would then occur. Right now, Peace Brigades International is establishing, upon the written request of the East Timorese Human Rights groups, a permanent presence of international volunteers in East Timor.
“Don’t do that. You’ll never get a job.” Such was the response of one of my favorite teachers to the interest that I had voiced in history as a potential field of study. A teacher whose class a friend and I had enjoyed so much we had taken time out of a weekday afternoon to come visit her. Sure, my response contrasted pretty acutely with that of my friend who wanted to pursue a career in computational linguistics, but history is my genuine interest. In an environment that constantly peddles science and technology careers, it’s hard to love history and literature.
Self-discovery is a way for one to discover who they are in the inside and to be able to express their characteristics to others. “Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” - Aristotle. Knowing one’s self isn’t about knowing family heritage, but what one can gain by being around others to help express themselves. Knowing others before themselves can help one boost their expectation in life. One factor towards discovery is by having self confidence. Self confidence can drive anyone to pursue their interests and excel in what they truly love the most. Another important factor that contributes to self confidence is loving one’s self and being an independent person. This element towards life can and will lead one down any path of success