In the next 750 words, I will attempt to give a moving and memorable commencement speech to the next graduating class. My intent is to leave the audience with something affecting and thoughtful that can transcend the immediate moment. In this paper, I will support my position with text from David McRaney’s The Backfire Effect, the classic Brazilian folktale The Businessman and the Fisherman, and Jon Gertner, The Futile Pursuit of Happiness. What is life? Life is defined as the condition that distinguishes animals and plants from inorganic matter, including the capacity for growth, reproduction, functional activity, and continual change preceding death. (Google) It is also defined as the existence of an individual human being or animal. (Google) The most profound and pivotal to me would be that life is defined as the period between the birth and death of a living thing, especially a human being. (Google) Yes, life is defined as stated above; but the essence of life is what you make of it, what you choose to attain and learn from it, and ultimately whether your actions matched your intent. As I stand before you today I’m beyond certain that most of you are not thinking about what your life is going to be like tomorrow or five years from now; but thankful that you’ve finally made it to this day, this moment. The majority of you are probably thinking about staying up to the wee hours of the nights getting papers and exams done, finally not having
In “Lost in America” by Douglas McGray, he writes about the need to improve the foreign language policies in schools across America and for students to gain knowledge about counties outside of America in the magazine, Foreign Policy. The author’s intentions are not to attack Americas educational system but to persuade the readers about the problems of the educational system used in America today. He wants the readers to realize that there is a change that needs to take place in the classrooms across America. He does this effectively by using the rhetorical choices antidotes, formal diction, and tone. His audience is geared towards American readers interested on political and cultural issues. I don’t think it’s geared towards students because,
I chose the Gary Abernathy Article because I agree in what he is arguing and think that all should try to see from his perspective to understand where he is coming from. He states that sports are meaningless. Sports is simply what gets us away from the real world for a few hours in order for us to enjoy something together as a community and as a country. When politics are dragged into sports, many Americans begin to feel stressed. Not only do Americans feel stressed, we often disagree with athletes. Lebron James stated that Americans supporting Trump are uneducated. Lebron James loses many fans now especially in Miami and in Florida where he once played after Trump won Florida. Sports is an escape from the outside world and from politics, we should keep it that way before sports lose even more viewers than they already have.
D. Watkins is a writer whose work has become famous across the world. He’s published in several big magazines and has had several interviews on TV. He writes his stories to try and bring more awareness about uneducated low income African Americans. He is a professor at Coppin State University and teaches English. His goal is to help educate his students as well as others through reading. In his article (my neighborhood revolution, one letter at a time) he stated “I am going to do everything in my power to make reading cool and destroy that Dub mentality, which is so common in Baltimore and many other low-income areas across America”
While David Lowery’s argument is made strong by his pathos and ethos. His logos or lack thereof pulls his argument down. On June 16th, 2012 Emily White published an article on how she had hardly ever purchased music, then on June 18 David Lowery respond to her article in a response that swept the nation, it lead him to a platform to speak on this topic and he is now one of the leading advocates for musicians’ rights.
David Penberthy’s article ‘Wrinklies have overtaken the hoons as the highest road death category’ (The Advertiser, September 4, 2014, p. 13) is charming but manipulative. Penberthy argues that abolishing the over seventies mandatory drivers license medical testing will endanger road safety. The title indicates that his intended audience is neither ‘hoons’ nor ‘wrinklies’; therefore falling between the ages of thirty and sixty-five. Penberthy’s article is an anecdotal lead that hooks the reader in from the beginning with a strong quote. He highlights the dangers and the changes in the new road laws. Penberthy writes with a persuasive and alarmist purpose against these new laws. The three pathos devices that are particularly persuasive, and the focus of this essay are anecdote, tone and his use of evidence.
Life, it is the most important thing that we have. There is no true way to put a value to it, and when it is taken away it can be the most heartbreaking thing a family can go through. There are many views about life and the value of it, but the only way you can possibly measure someone’s “value” is through love. The amount of love someone has for someone else and the importance of that person cannot be equated to a monetary value.
Scion. FrontPoint. Cornwall. These three companies were founded by men that understood that the subprime market was deteriorating and had a faulty foundation in bad loans. Lewis, in The Big Short, discusses the origination of these companies and how they figured out the value to short-selling credit default swaps in the subprime mortgage market.
But even as I work on obtaining skills and finishing my high school work, I will also focus on the big picture, and not get so wrapped up in the steps to get there that I forget where I am going. The most important question I’ll ask myself in the future will be about who I loved, and if I truly impacted the lives of those closest to me. I hope to have inspired them to dream big and work hard by doing that myself, and I hope they will talk about me the way I talk about some of my biggest heroes like Laura Sandefer has, Robert Bakhshai has, and Abigail King.
Personhood can have bering over how one defines life and death. Being a person, someone with intelligence and intellectual ideals, life is more alluring than death and a person would define their life by what they
Today, I stand before you, as a graduating Senior, filled with confusion, uncertainty, and doubt. I’m unsure about what the future holds, what
As I stand before you all today at our Graduation Mass, I ask that if you are to only remember me by one thing that I have ever said, that it be this moment where I hope for you all to not be like the people in this passage. I hope that you will all not be like the hypocrites, the selfish and the self-absorbed who only commit acts of charity in search of praise and approval. As we come to the last page of our high school lives, a new and blank book is waiting for us, waiting for us to put pen to paper and create the women who will shape the world.
A number of different people have interpreted the word “living” in a number of different ways, all for a number of different reasons. To some, living might simply be the state of being alive, regardless of what that life consists of. To others, the content of one’s life could determine the difference between living and merely surviving. An example of another interpretation of life would be the belief in isolation from society and using nature as a way to truly discover themselves. Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are arguably the two most famous advocates of this philosophy, otherwise known as Transcendentalism. However, every single definition of the term “living” faces constant criticism in some way, because one definition does not apply to every single person. So one might ask: What does it truly mean to live “correctly”? In truth, there is no specific, “correct” way to live that applies to everyone. Instead, the exact way to live varies from person to person, but it all depends on one thing: beliefs. Every person makes certain decisions based on what they believe in, and what they place their faith in. The proper way one should live is by deciding what beliefs are of value to them, and then allowing these principles to define your every action without fear of criticism, just as we see Emerson and Thoreau do.
When it comes to life, we may ask what life is. Regarding this question, answers vary from person to person and vary from age to age. One may hold that life is included in open seven things, leading a life of firewood, rice, oil, salt, sauce, vinegar and tea while others may think that life is the process in which an individual gradually grows up and gets mature. In small children's eyes, life is to enjoy their playing time to their hearts' content. In teenagers' eyes, life may be closely connected with studying hard and pursuing further education. And old people may consider life as the time they can spend with family and
The primary of life is to complete what you start, simply because if you never finish what's the importance of life. Life is about doing as much as you can in this little time that we have in this planet. I personally can’t start something and not finish it because when I finish it what I’m doing or started it gives me a sense of accomplishment, which makes you feel proud. The Laws of Life I personally follow is if you do good; good will come to you, finish what you start, and be open minded about everything because you only have this one life and you never know what you could miss out on if you don’t stay open minded.
Life is a precious gift from God. It is precious because He created it and declares it so in