Review Essay Rough Draft

How Amazing Are You!

            “What can you contribute to our corporation,” the straight-to-the-fact interviewer in an unscathed business uniform asked? “Well I am a hard-worker, I am very creative and I am easy to work with,” I replied, in an uncertain voice, hoping that I sounded somewhat confident. “But what are you good at, what did you accomplish in life?”, pushed the interviewer in an overly-confident voice that clearly outshone and diminished my shaky and nervous appeal. “Well I was a cross-country captain in high school, I won the national merit scholarship, I graduated from Stanford university with honors in Physics, I won a national chess tournament, I have consistently won the presidential award for volunteering every year since 8^th grade and I started a charity the homeless that has grown nationwide.” I breathed sigh of relief and thought, “What a long list!” The interviewer jotted down some notes on her clean and orderly notepad, with a very expensive looking, and shiny, ballpoint pen. “Ok that will be all, you may leave,” was all she said in a very bored voice.

            In a world where we rush to get from one job to another, or one extracurricular to the next, we often label ourselves as great based on our accomplishments, wealth or popularity. This façade called the “American Dream” often pushed us the brink of exhaustion, just so we can feel validated by our jobs or hobbies. We let our jobs or wealth define us, and sometimes we use it to justify that we are better, smarter or more amazing than others. This can sometimes lead us into a nationwide rat race, where we just keep thinking that what we are is not enough. Though many look to the American Dream as an idealized goal, I would say that it is a misguided notion that is leading us into despair. Here, I will explain why.

            The “American” dream, not the European dream or the worldwide dream, just “American” dream. The dream does not even refer to Canada, Mexico, Latin America or South America, which are all indeed part of the Americas. It just refers to those who live in the United States, which is amazingly exclusive. Though some may argue that the American Dream was meant to encourage and inspire the citizens of a growing nation that was founded in July 4^th, 1776, it really did not turn out that way. It was first used to encourage the so-called “Americans” to expand their territory, which was, for the most part, taken forcefully from the Native Americans that lived there. The reason we took the land, we say, was because we believed that we were better than those savage Native Americans who did not practice Christianity, the greatest and most powerful religion.

Now you might be asking how this applies to the current day United States. “We apologized to those Indians (the term we called them and still do today, even though they are not in fact Indians) and the abusive treatment of the Indians leaves a dark mark in United States history,” you might say. Well I say, “Have we ever returned their lands? Have we ever apologized for manipulating them into signing land treaties, instead of just apologizing for their bad treatment?” I believe in the saying that “old habits die hard”. We thought we were better than the Native Americans throughout the 18^th to 19^th century, and yet now we believe that we are better than the world in the 21^st century.

This cultural basis of superiority destroys us from within as well, since not only do we think that we are better than people from outside the U.S., but we think that we are better than other U.S. citizens as well. According to Mark Manson, author of the essay, “The American Dream is Killing us” the misguided American Dream leads us to exploiting others, justifying people’s value on what they achieve and enforces the belief that people get what they deserve. It is no wonder how these actions lead to mass competitiveness for popularity, smartness or wealth.

A testament to this vicious cut-throat nature, is seen in the introduction. No matter how much you do, there is a part of you that feels that you are not enough. American society encourages this, making you feel inferior and inspiring you to continue working yourself to death to validate yourself. I personally have seen this in my High School. It seems scary that this attitude has spread to the younger nature, but it has. Walking through the bustling, way too bright hallways I recall why I left high school to do PSEO. My group of friends was termed as the nerd group and they kept with their title as if it proved that they belonged there. I always felt off with them. I never realized it until I left. All they cared about was studying and working. They rarely had fun or free time, keeping busy with orchestra, band, soccer, tennis, volunteering or the multitude of other extracurricular that they felt required to do. They never could just sit and read a book, or watch TV. They could never relax because they could not let themselves. They had to work so much, and I agree that some did it for passion, but it was not very long before that passion turned into something more manufactured. I know this, because I was like them up to a point. I drove myself crazy thinking that I needed to be doing something with every second of my time. Up until a year ago, when I escaped that rat race, I never realized that there were other, more important things in life.

Though the idea of American Superiority dominated the mind in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, the competition for material wealth became heavily emphasized in the 20^th century. According to Kimberly Amadeo, writer of the essay “What is the American Dream Today”, “Over time, the definition of happiness started to change. In the 1920s, it became the acquisition of material things, as exemplified by the novel The Great Gatsby. A pursuit of happiness driven by greed was not attainable because someone else always had more. This greed led to the stock market crash of 1929 and the Great Depression.” The pursuit of happiness is still something that exists very much today. But, if happiness is not the acquisition of wealth or material belongings, like the American Dream states, what is it?

According to the World Happiness Index, the U.S. is ranked at 13 out of 53 countries. For a country that promotes the pursuit of happiness as a part of the American Dream, shouldn’t we be ranked higher on the list? This implies that working is not everything and it is certainly not the basis for happiness. To look into what happiness is, we are going to look at an interesting survey that recorded the top regrets of people before they died. In a list of 5 regrets, the second biggest regret is “I wish I hadn’t worked so hard.” Nowhere on the list did people regret not having enough fame or wealth. Other regrets included, “I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends, I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings and I wish that I had less myself be happier.” When I tried to figure out what happiness is, I happened upon an interesting conclusion. Happiness is a choice, it is not a race, it is not an unattainable object, it is a choice.

I did not intend to completely bash the United States, I just wanted to point out some key flaws in something that I think can greatly be improved. There are better definitions of an American dream. Amadeo states in her article a new dream, “For example, the Center for a New American Dream envisions "... a focus on more of what really matters, such as creating a meaningful life, contributing to community and society, valuing nature, and spending time with family and friends."” Happiness comes from within. Ultimately it comes down to one choice, work on industrialized passions or find a real passion and spend time with those you love? The choice is ultimately up to you, but always remember that one of the biggest regrets in life was “I wished I hadn’t worked so hard” not “I wished I had worked more”.

Works Cited

Amdeo, Kimberly. “What Is the American Dream Today?” The Balance. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb.

2017. < https://www.thebalance.com/what-is-the-american-dream-today-3306027>.

Hrala, Josh. "The World Happiness Index 2016 Just Ranked the Happiest Countries on

Earth." ScienceAlert. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. < http://www.sciencealert.com/the-world-happiness-index-2016-just-ranked-the-happiest-countries-on-earth>.

Manson, Mark. "The American Dream Is Killing Us." Mark Manson. N.p., 30 Jan. 2017. Web.

            19 Feb. 2017. < https://markmanson.net/american-dream>.

Moore, Susie. "The 5 Biggest Regrets People Have Before They Die." Greatist. Greatist, 07 Feb.

            2017. Web. 19 Feb. 2017. < http://greatist.com/live/most-common-regrets>.

The Search for a Perfect Review Topic

Things I want:

• To be able to get up right now and travel the world
• The world's biggest library
• To work for National Geographic
• To not rely on medication
• To get rid of these teenage hormones

The Jury is still out:

• Physics
• Chemistry? (It is a love/hate relationship here....)
• Writing, never was sure if I liked writing or not?
• Love, I am not completely certain that it exists...
• What I want in life?

My media and my obsessions:

• Avatar the last air bender!
• Wheel of time, Malazan, game of thrones, basically any epic fantasy book series
• Books in general....
• Interstellar!
• Into the Wild
• travel!

Things that bother me:

• arrogant smart people
• arrogant people
• overly competitive people
• haters
• show offs
• bullies, mean people
• basically, just a lot of people bother me...

Fast writing Prompt- BOTHERSOME PEOPLE:

People bother me most of the time. Sometimes I know why, and sometimes I do not. This is probably a very unpopular opinion. I have always been an antisocial, quiet person who enjoys spending days reading books instead of going to hang out with friends. Books allow me to live so many different lives, some lives that I could never have in the real world. A lot of the time, I get so much more connected to the characters in the books rather than real people. It is kind of why some people love movies and television, they like getting immersed into these worlds. Sometimes the creativity and imagination of literature and film can take you to places that cannot even be perceived in reality. 

Profile Essay - Rough Draft

Shivani Mahajan

Professor Maltman

ENGC 1101-09

5 February 2017

A New Life

            A baby’s first cries lit up the room. After several hours of anticipating and waiting, a new life was born. This tiny bundle of joy marked a change, not just for the parents, but for the attending physician and his two medical students as well. A baby is born when it decides to be born and the physician, realizing this due to years of practice, displayed a calm, patient demeanor throughout the process. The medical students on the other hand were basically jumping up and down with apprehension. For the most part however, there was nothing for them to do except wait. When the time finally came, one of the students, Joudat, was the first to hold the baby and deliver it to the mother. “That was one of the happiest moments in my life,” Joudat recalls. Seeing a new life being brought into this world and seeing the love between the parents and the child is so pure and heartwarming that it can leave a place in your heart forever.

            When growing up in Syria Joudat Yazigi was the youngest of six brothers. Though some of the brothers went to college or had jobs, the family was very tight-knit. They would all come together on the weekends for family, food and jokes. Whenever you walked into the Yazigi household there would always be roaring laughter filling up the place with it’s warmth.  Joudat recalls, “My mom used to call us the circus, because whenever the gang is present someone is always telling jokes.” When you are surrounded by laughter in your childhood, it is no wonder why you are always smiling and laughing when you’re older. Joudat jokingly terms his family’s sense of humor as “pathological euphoria.”

            Though they made their way through life laughing, this did not mean that the Yazigi’s were slackers when it came to studies. Learning and education was their top priority and it was emphasized that, “College and school is something that you do, you need to breath, you need to study.” Study and work is something that all of the family was required to do, so success in study was not exactly regarded as success because you are expected to succeed and work hard in study. Success for them was more like having a happy family and a close friend circle that was well taken care of.

            Their high standards in education resulted in many of the six boys growing up to be doctors or engineers, professions that require well educated students. Joudat eventually ended up as a doctor, though he always knew that he wanted to go into the medical field. His older brothers were already doctors when Joudat was growing up and were his “ultimate heroes.” He wanted to be just like them, though when he was little, “I enjoyed the idea of looking into stuff and figuring it out and of course I used to carry the family stethoscopes around the house so that they will never ever find them.” Another major factor that pushed Joudat into the medical field was his mother. When he was around 12 years old, his mother had a heart failure. This was one of the strongest motivations for him and it made him specifically want to be a cardiologist so that he could help her.

            When Joudat was studying and when he became a doctor he learned a lot of important life lessons that came along with the profession. “It makes you become very realistic because medicine is an incomplete science. You always have the feeling that you just can’t do your best. You learn about mortality, the fact that we are all humans and life is short and you have to do your best to enjoy life. You see illness everyday so you understand that death is part of life, but it also makes you more wise, nothing surprises you. You learn to be more humane because you can not be with people and not love people, you cannot do this if you really don’t care, it is part of the job, and it is something that I would love to do for as long as I can.”

            While he was forging his path in life, Joudat became the first of his family to leave Syria and study in Russia. After completing medical school there, he arrived in U.S. and was glad to see that his family moved there when he was in Russia. “The first transition was the hardest because you are 17, you are a very very stubborn young man, who questions everything and wants to know everything and of course very brave because every person in my family didn’t think it was a good idea. I insisted and they said “Ok, you wanna go, you have to be a man of your own decisions”. I was the one that left, and I can tell you that the first two months was probably the hardest ever, because first you can not look like someone who is doubting your own decision and second because I missed my family so much. Things that I took for granted were no longer there. The transition to the U.S. was the easiest thing that I have ever done. Why? Because my parents already lived in the U.S.” Home is where the family is. Family is so important, though many of us fail to realize it.

            Living in three different countries makes for a person who is very accepting of different cultures, languages and environments. “I did speak English before coming to Russia, the problem was the Russians did not speak English, the Russians spoke only Russian.” Russia was also very could, while Syria was very hot and it is surprising to see how much weather does impact you when moving to different places. “One time I was coming to Russia and I was wearing a very light jacket. The airplane could not get close to the terminal so we had to go down the stairs and get into a bus. And that 20 seconds when you are going and getting into the bus, man I can tell you my bones were frozen.”

One thing is consistent however, the people may act in accordance to different cultures but they are essentially the same good people. “I consider myself a very lucky man, I was so fortunate to run into so many kind people. People are essentially good no matter where you are” When getting lost in Saint Petersburg, “I wanted someone to point me towards the subway and I decided to ask an elderly lady and she holds me by the hand and she walks with me, I’m like that’s such a kind act. If you look at people, they are good and I am fortunate enough to be surrounded by very kind people.” Though it may be difficult for us to think that people are essentially good when there is so much tragedy, pain and suffering in the world, Joudat retains this positive outlook on the world.

It was Saturday night and I was walking up the Yazigi household for a dinner party. The house is lighted up beautifully and when we enter we are greeted with kindness and smiles. Whenever we meet with them, they are always so kind, and of course incredibly funny! They are like people that I have never met before, so happy and joyful and real. When I asked Joudat about this happiness that he and his family has, he says, “Both my parents were known to be very sincere people, so if you are sincere you are at ease. If I do not like someone, I will not talk about them behind their back, I will wish them all the best and pray for them every morning and pray that they will stay away, as far as possible.” With his friends, however, he says, “My friends and I are like family. We look after one another and when we get together it is a party!” I admire Joudat and his family so much, not just because they work so hard, but because they genuinely enjoy what they do and they spread joy and happiness wherever they go.