What Is Ignorance

Napoleon Hill once stated, “Every adversity, every failure, every heartache carries with it the seed of an equal or greater benefit.” From George Washington to Nelson Mandela, greatness is cultivated from adversity during turbulent times. Horace’s assertion is correct in view of the fact that adversity causes people to act, reveals vulnerabilities, and forces people to adapt.

In life people face challenges, but they have to fight through it and overcome them. That is called perseverance. The definition of perseverance is “Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.” Synonyms are persistence and determination. It originated from the Latin word perseverare, which means “Keeping constant in an attitude” Right now the world has been filled with natural disasters, from hurricanes to wildfires. Everyone that this has affected has been forced to persevere through it because there is not much that they have the ability to do besides staying strong. In all of the nonfiction literature there are many different examples of perseverance from many different people. For the first example is Melba Pattillo Beals from “Warriors Don’t Cry”. There is numerous examples of the Little Rock 9 and her doing something despite difficulty. The second example is Temple Grandin. She was born in a time where people didn’t know how to handle her differences. She still tried as hard as she could even though not many people believed in her. The third example is Earl Simmons (DMX) from the book “E.A.R.L”. He went through a tough time almost all time growing up and he never gave up and achieved success. Perseverance creates success; therefore, sticking through something accomplishments can be made.

When people go through something difficult it can change them. Making them who they are, it can change them for the bad or good. Therefore, hardships can greatly influence a person’s life by making them appreciate all the things that make life enjoyable.

Adversity has a way of bringing up challenges unexpectedly, most people shrink away from it and get consumed, but when they push through it people come out stronger than they were before.

Hardships have the power to make a break a person, as Roman poet, Horace, once said, “Adversity has the effect of eliciting talents which in prosperous circumstances would have lain dormant”. Everyone has or will have to face adversity at some point in their lives, it is a universal truth. Although misfortunes usually have a negative connotation, depending on the struggle and how one deals with it, it is likely the person will come out of misfortune better prepared for the world. Contrastly, if a person never experienced any hardships, they would lack a sophisticated understanding of the world and lack the ability to handle difficult situations. Adversity gives people strength they can not obtain with success.

“Challenges are what make life interesting and overcoming them is what makes life meaningful” -Joshua J. Marine. If you face a trouble/hardship in life and you find a way to overcome them, life will teach you a valuable lesson. Ponyboy faces many deaths/troubles in his life; when he figured out how to get over them, he benefits tremendously. S.E. Hinton focuses on the topic of: everyone goes through hardships, it’s how you deal with them that teach you a greater lesson in life.

There are things that happen when we are growing up that change us when we are grown. There are things that change us forever. Every human being is different, and there is a reason why . All of us had a childhood and all kinds of experiences some good, some bad, some full of joy but also others very painful. Eventually we grow childhood and mature depending of what we have gone through. The way we are able to handle situations is very important because one thing leads to another. We can't rely on intuition, we need to have logic in what our choices are. We can’t just punch someone in the face just because we don’t like a certain individual, or go up to

Life is hard. It throws challenges at us in the blink of an eye, not caring how we handle those challenges, and then throws another. The challenges can be small or unnoticeable. On the other end, it can be life changing, from injuries to death of loved ones. These events are impossible to throw aside and how we handle them is how life changes.

Charles Bailey, a survivor of sexual abuse from the Catholic church said once that, “I feel that some people have a hard time with the truths around us, not only the sexual abuse by priests, but all bad things. I call it chosen ignorance. This modified form of ignorance is found in people who, if confronted with certain truths realize that they have to accept them and thereby acknowledge evil, and that scares them. Opening up and letting the truth in might knock them off their perceived center. It is too hard, period.” (Bailey, 2017). The movie Spotlight focuses heavily on the sexual abuse scandal within the Catholic church and the crimes that were committed and addresses this “modified form of ignorance” Bailey was speaking about. Thousands of priests internationally were found to be guilty of engaging in inappropriate behavior such as molestation and sexual assault, two things which very clearly are crimes, but that so many got away with for so long. Spotlight tells the story of reporter Michael Renendez and his team at the Boston Globe and how they worked endlessly to uncover the deeply rooted and buried scandals of the Catholic

Instead of making use of this life-changing concept, most sit and bemoan about the grievances life has thrown their way, yet do nothing to ameliorate them. It is unsettling to think that I can lose everything at the drop of a hat, but I find this so fascinating because with each opportunity of loss there is a possibility for something better. With every death and accident there is a reminder that life is short and unpredictable, but we can't let that stop us from being that kind stranger or having childlike wonder, instead we have to let it be our reason to strive for change because just when things seem stagnant, there is a new door ready to open if we would only turn the

In conclusion, I have a distinctive history, but that same history has constructed a unique individual that has learned knowledge is the basis of it all. Without knowledge that is where ignorance perspectives are born. The greatest thing I have received from my history is the know how that things and people do change. Like my father at the time of need he rose to the occasion, leaving behind his bias towards women. I have changed the cycle of falling into the statistics by proving to everyone that I am able to succeed. To being next to people that have a whole lot more opportunities and privileges than I ever

As we go through life, struggles are bound to come our way at one point or another. Life takes us on a journey with unexpected twists and turns; it brings about an outcome that is beyond anything we could ever imagine. Along this journey we are able to learn about our character, strength, perseverance, and passion.

“There are over 6,000 languages spoken in the world today, many of which are spoken by fewer than a few hundred people” (10 cultural differences and facts that make the world interesting). The world as we know it today is a very diverse place, it has multitudes of culture and ways of life. Throughout the world there are many different religions, races, and countries that all deal with setbacks and disadvantages. But we all have something in common, people no matter who they are or where they are from, battle with hardship. We all face the same problem whether its home, work, family or personal problems we all suffer through the disasters, and the heartaches. Furthermore it takes in every situation perseverance to overcome all hardships. Nevertheless to have perseverance one has to have hope and courage to pursue and conquer the obstructions of life. By looking at “As I Get Older” by Langston Hughes one can see that individuals overcome their struggles and hardships by having hope and courage and being able persevere through each and every interference, or misfortune.

First, I’d like to start with a disclaimer that I am not basing my arguments purely on opinion. I am a sophomore at Gorham High School, who has witnessed repulsive statements that have come out of the mouths of my classmates about Islamic people, refugees, and this social issue altogether. It is disgusting.

People accept the things that authority figures say and ‘teach’ the world, but nobody is brave enough to question them. Nobody will stick their neck out far enough to feel the sun and be released from the cave. We are held back by our chains because we are too afraid of the things going on around us. These authority figures have made our ignorance feel safe and we refuse to leave. We are so plain that even if we knew the truth, we’d keep it to ourselves and slowly turn it over in our minds, and tuck it away. Our society lives in the dark, and is so ignorant and stubborn that even when people escape, they refuse to try to release us from our chains because they know what they say will never work.