Personal Image

Do we try to make ourselves look better than we really are?  While some may argue no, I believe that we as people consume our lives into doing this very thing.  Just look at many of the things people desire to have: big houses, fancy cars, expensive clothing.  All of these things are attempts to make one appear better.  

One of the biggest examples of this phenomenon is a person's Facebook profile.  On ever person profile, only the best photos are posted.  When people post statuses on Facebook, if they do not get a certain amount of likes, they delete the post all together.  Why is this?  It all roots back to the basic idea that people try to make themselves appear better than they really are.  When a status does not obtain a "satisfactory" amount of likes, it is deleted because to the poster, it makes them look bad, as if people do not care about what they have posted.  In order to maintain their higher appearance, they delete it in hopes that no one has noticed this lack of attention.

Another example of this is done by colleges and universities.  Colleges and universities but thousands and probably millions of dollars into making their sports teams and stadiums look amazing.  All of this is done to try to attract more students to their school.  Even if the school's academics are of low or high quality, one of their main focuses is to make their sports teams perform well to make the college or university appear a lot better than it actually may be.  All in all, almost everyone tries to make himself look better than they actually are at some point in their life.

Success

"Study hard so you can be successful in the future."  I am sure everyone has heard these words from their parents while going through school.  We work hard in school to get good grades.  We get good grades to get into a good college.  We go to a good college to get a good job.  We get a good job so we get a large income.  Sounds pretty dull and boring, right?  So what is success and why are we striving for it so much?  Well, depending on who you ask, success can mean anything.  

The American Dream is a very generic representation of what many Americans would call success.  Living in a safe environment, owning your own home, having a job, and being able to put food on the table every night.  However, if you are Mitt Romney, this vision of success means nothing.  Someone like Mitt Romney has no trouble with owning a house, let alone putting food on the table (although he might be having a little trouble with having a job right now).  This can be seen through the collegehumor.com video Mitt Romney Style, a parody of the famous Gangnam Style (due to profanity in the song, I will not be able to post it on my blog.  View discretion is advised:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTCRwi71_ns)  So what would success mean for him?  I believe that success is measure in two different ways:  success is measured by the individual and by the society that surrounds them.  For example, I would consider myself as successful if I go to Stanford University and make 250,000 dollars or more a year.  However, Mitt Romney might see success as become the next President of the United States.  Thus, success is relative to the individual.

Success can also be measured in comparison to others.  In comparison to Mitt Romney, I am far less successful than he is.  If you ask anyone, they will give you the same answer.  This is another way to measure success: through comparisons to others.  By looking at ones income, possessions, and way of life, society as a whole often measures other people's success.  Thus, even though success if a very relative term, it is easily and often measured by society and ourselves.

And it's Over

After three weeks of reading through The Scarlet Letter, we are finally done! And just as quickly as our journey into the book has ended, so was the ending of the books itself.  In all honesty, I was a little disappointed in the very anti-climatic ending of The Scarlet Letter.  After battling daily and weekly to finish reading the chapters for homework, the ending of the book left a bitter feeling of disappointment with me.  Every night, when trying to read the book, I found myself falling asleep.  It really was like a battle, struggling to get through the chapters assigned before I would be too tired and to sleepy to read on.  Hawthorne's long, descriptive sentences also often left me wondering what he was even saying when I finally did reach the end of it!  Now, the book itself was very good.  The story of Hester's struggle to deal with her sin and raise her child while being shunned to the bottom of society was very interesting.  Also, Hester's strength throughout her struggle also was inspiring and left something for the readers to learn from.  Dimmesdale's struggle with his internal guilt and his battle with Chillingworth was very intense and intriguing   After such well written build up to this moment of climax, I was a little disappoint by how Dimmesdale finally dies.  After giving his speech at the Election Day sermon, he decides to finally face his guilt and suddenly, within 5 pages, he confesses his sin and dies.  In his final moments he says, "By bringing me hither, to die this death of triumphant ignominy before the people! Had either of these agonies been wanting, I had been lost forever! Praised be his name! His will be done! Farewell!" (Hawthorne 252).  To me, it felt as though Dimmesdale's death was very sudden and random.  In fact, after reading the chapter, I wondered to myself, "Couldn't have this happened about 100 pages back?"  Now although my disapproval of the ending is quite evident, I would like to end by saying I did enjoy the rest of the book very much.  Although it was a bit tiring and sometimes hard to read, the story line was very interesting and it left lessons for all readers to take away.

Revenge

Anytime someone hurts you, makes fun of you, or affects you in a way you do not like, what is the first thing that pops into your head? For most, it's something along the lines of, "I'm going to get you back for this!"  This is revenge, to retaliate back at someone.  Sometimes, getting revenge is acceptable, such as when friends pulling practical jokes on each other.  For example, Amir and Streeter from collegehumor.com engage in a prank war with each other.  After Streeter pulled a prank on Amir, Amir decided to get his revenge by pulling a practical joke on him.  After Streeter got pranked by Amir, Streeter decided to then get his revenge and pull a prank on Amir.  And so, they constantly continue to be in a prank war with each other, all because of their desire to get revenge on the other.  However, in the case of Robert Chillingworth in Nathaniel Hawthorne's, The Scarlet Letter, revenge takes on an extreme evil turn.

After sending his wife to America, Robert Chillingworth was slow to follow suit and arrived in America much later than planned.  Unfortunately for him, he saw, upon his arrival, the site of his wife being displayed on a scaffold as an adulterer.  At this site he becomes filled with anger and feels the need for revenge.  This revenge soon consumes his very being, and it turns him into a very evil man who, in fact, mainly symbolizes the devil throughout the novel.  This is a case in which revenge is very bad.  Although revenge is a part of human nature and can make one feel good about himself, it is not okay to get revenge in such an evil way.  Instead doing something harmless such as pulling a prank on someone, Chillingworth wishes to find his wife's accomplice and ruin his life.  In this case, it would have been better for everyone to let go of their anger and move on.  If Chillingworth had done so, he would have not transformed into the evil figure he becomes in the novel and could have started a better and new life for himself.