| Sat essay
Thus the decision one Pease Score
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
The people we call heroes do not usually start out as unusual. Often they are ordinary people subject to ordinary human weaknesses—fear, doubt, and self-interest. In fact, they live ordinary lives until they distinguish themselves by having to deal with an injustice or a difficult situation. Only then, when they must respond in thought and in action to an extraordinary challenge, do people begin to know their strengths and weaknesses.
Assignment:
Do people learn who they are only when they are forced into action? Plan and write an essay in which you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.
Essay:
A man's worth is measured not by his affluence, but rather his ability to make a decision in the hardest of times. Once in a while, life presents us with a choice, a choice that has a narrow window of time, but is mandatory. A choice that will test our courage and the extent of our self - rightousness. These choices stay with us for life and haunt us if we make the wrong decision. It makes us feel low and unworthy for not being able to make the right decision. Such decisions could be as simple as not standing up for our friend in his or her time of embarrasment or as complicated as having an affair. Nevertheless, situations which propose the highly unpopular but right decision and the easy but guilt ridden decision reveal to us who we really are.
In the novel, "A SCARLET LETTER," Reverend Dimmesdale, the partner in crime for adultery, fails to raise to the scaffold along with his lover and confess his mistake. For seven years he remains a coward, living a life of reverance, while his lover suffers austerity, shame and unjustice. But Dimmesdale's decision to not come forth. with the secret cripples him mentally and physically. The feeling of compunction engulfs and makes him moribound. When he fails to take his place on the scaffold and confess, he finds out that the "he is the greatest of sinners" and a coward. While Hester, his lover, even in her agony stays loyal to him, revealing to herself that though she has commited a Christian Sin, she is still a worthy women and convinces the magistrate to allow her to rear her own child. Both Hester and Dimmesdale were faced with the most difficult of decisions. The choices they make either bring them great austerity or regret.
Thus the decision one makes, in spite of the humility that may come with it or the guilt,, reveal who he or she reall is. Dimmesdale was faced with a decision to be either courageous or cowardly. His decision left him heart broken. It crippled because he felt like he was less of a man and unworthy of respect. He realized who he really was. Hester stayed to her words and though she was ostrasized, she lived guilt free. Her decision showed her that she was a good mother and woman. Thus situations, which either bring great humility or compunction reveal the type of person one really is.
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