-1Carina Nieves
ENG102.0835
Professor Picardi
04/2/08
“Individual and Self-Realization Essay”
An individual is a human being, who is distinct from the group,
the group being our society. Oftentimes society wants us to conform to its
ways. In life we come across many obstacles and challenges that sometimes
impact us in ways we don’t know first off. Sometimes self-realization can come
from an incident or a decision that was made. Decisions made in our life can change
our thoughts, attitudes, actions and emotions, which make us, change our retrospective
view on life.
As told in the short story Revelation by Flannery O’Connor, one of the
characters Mrs. Turpin makes a decision that changes her life. The characters in the
story face challenges dealing with other people they come across for the first time. Mrs.
Turpin is a religious woman, but at the same time criticizes others she doesn’t know.
After an incident with Mary Grace, Mrs. Turpin’s vision blurs and this is when she has an
epiphany. Such incidents like this when we come across either obstacles or people can
make us take a step back and realize what we have done and what could be changed. A
few months ago I had a self-realization, I was attending a student leadership conference
and I sat with some members of the Phi Theta Kappa on campus. I became emotional and
began to cry because at the time I was the only one trying to get the Circle-K up and
running again and I couldn’t take the pressure of doing it all by myself with no
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help. One of the officers told me not to give up and that what I was doing is great.
She said when she started PTK she had a hard time too and that’s when she told
me this: “When you speak your tone is very forceful and you can’t get your point across
like that”. Then she asked how I old I was and she said “When you start hanging out with
older people you’ll learn. I didn’t know either so I learned”. My mother later told me the
same thing. After these incidents I realized that I have the potential to be better at
controlling myself by the way I speak to help others understand my views.
On the other hand, in the poem by Robert Frost” The Road Not Taken”, we see a
different side of a character who reflects back on his decision. The narrator asks himself
and reflects if the road he has taken was the best choice” Two roads diverged in a yellow
wood, and I-“(Frost 634). I happen to like this poem a lot mainly due to its meaning. This
reminds me of myself and how I know I am different from everyone else because of my
personality. I sometimes think back to high school and regret what I could have done. I
never tried my hardest in math, Spanish, chemistry classes and the SAT and wonder if I
did where I would be now? I have now realized that I can achieve my full potential, if I
have determination and work hard in everything I do.
Similarly, in the short story Young Goodman Brown , by Nathaniel Hawthorne,
the protagonist Goodman Browns attitude changes due to a wrong decision. Brown learns
the truth about the wrong doings in his church. The decision he made to go into the
woods ends up changing his life forever. In the end, Goodman Brown feels guilty about
finding out the truth and begins living his life aimlessly “ Often, awakening suddenly at
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midnight, he shrank from the bosom of faith” and “When the family knelt down at
prayer, he scowled, and muttered to himself, and gazed sternly at his wife, and turned
away.”(Hawthorne 350) Many actions of bitterness and strife can change one’s life
forever. My sister in the past years has made many decisions that my family and I have
felt are wrong. Not now, but maybe in the future, she may regret doing the things she has
done to herself and the relationship to my family.
In conclusion our decisions can affect us in many different ways and can make us
end up changing our life. All of the characters in both the short stories and the poem have
come across obstacles. Some of them changed their attitudes and emotions, others have
changed their view on life, and maybe also reflect on decisions that were made. An
individual stands out from the crowd and the only way to do that is to find out what our
true potential is and to work to achieve what we believe we want to do. The environment
we live in does change the way we think but it is us who decide what influences we allow
to shape who we are. Society doesn’t make us, we make ourselves.