My Challenges to Living a Good Life By Sam Stragand In this crazy thing we call life, every person faces challenges from the moment they are born to the moment they die. These challenges come from both inside and outside of us. As a society, we tend to reward the people who face external challenges such as oppressive rule or a favored opponent. However, I believe the people who fight their external evils best have first struggled to understand and defeat their internal demons. These internal struggles make us who we are. We define ourselves through our weaknesses: whether fears or impediments to true belief or our own beliefs. Personally, my challenges to living a good life are my pessimistic view of humanity, my tendency to only rely on myself, and my need to be part of the group.
Throughout my life, I have tended to focus on the problems of people before I give them credit for their humanity. Especially if I have already categorized the person, I tend to make assumptions about them. For example, if I know someone who has a certain view that I do not agree with, I think that the person has not really thought about the issue, because if they had, they would have seen that they were wrong. However, many times these people have thought through the issues just as I have only to they come to a different educated conclusion. This same pessimistic principle applies to greater society, for I tend to ignore the accomplishments and focus more on how far we have to go and how much better society would be if everyone were like me. Often times when I am out in public, I find myself laughing at the folly of humans as I look down like I do not make the same mistakes. However, I do make those same mistakes so I am just as much a part of the folly as anyone else. Society will only accomplish its goals if everyone works together as equals. How am I supposed to contribute to society if I think I am too good for it. Instead of constantly looking down on people, I should lead by example as an equal part of the team we call society. Because of my pessimistic view of society, I have trouble placing my trust in anyone because they may let me down, so I try to do everything by myself. These lone attempts often end in disappointment because the only way we can accomplish anything is to work together. However, I tend to rely on myself, not because I have often been disappointed by others, but rather because I always have had a negative view of humanity. For example, if someone wants to work with me on an assignment, I often find myself trying to get out of working with the person, not because of them, but because of my inability to accept their help. Instead of pushing those who try to help away, I need to praise their help and in return help them, because working together we can accomplish much more. While I may want to work alone, I will go to extreme lengths so that society will accept me. I often find myself buying something not because I like it, but rather because it is what society has deemed cool. I pride myself on being outside of the pop culture and its meaningless existence. However, even outside of the mainstream, many people, like myself, tend to get caught trying to make cool. The reality is, however, that cool is what you make it, so cool comes only from one’s natural self. Cool cannot be processed or packaged or even imagined because real coolness comes naturally as a person accepts him or herself for who they truly are. So instead of looking externally for who I should be, I need to search internally for my own true self. The more I can understand my problems, the more I can change them to be a better member of humanity.