I believe that everyone
should read Desiderata by Max Erhmann. The biggest obstacle that I have
struggled with while in college is having to make my own decisions. At first I
believed that all of my newly granted freedom was the best thing that ever
happened to me in my, very, shortly lived adult life. I didn’t have to ask to
go out at night, I could stay up as late as I wanted, and I had no one nagging
me about doing my homework or chores. This was all fun for the first week or
so, but then I realized that I like some direction in my life, basically I wanted
people to tell me what to do. It would’ve make everything a lot easier. But that’s
not what growing up is. I quickly discovered that I am a very dependent person,
and when it comes down to the hard questions that I had to answer by myself I
needed something to guide me, give me advice and hold my hand a little bit.
That is why I believe everyone should read Desiderata by Max Erhmann, because
it has guided me through my toughest times. When I need a moment to get my feet
back on the ground I look to the words of the poem to help me stay on track
with what I really need and really want. Which is ironic because at the time I first
discovered this poem I didn’t know that Desiderata actually means “desired
things.” The poem reassures me that everything is in its place, the universe
will unfold as it supposed to and I am a strong person that understands asking
for help is no weakness. All of this
makes me worry less and trust in myself more. My favorite line from this poem
is, “Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things
of youth.” This line is the one I believe describes what I’m feeling when
explaining the importance of this poem. I realize now that I am the only one
who can really, truly make my decisions and this poem helped me see that. And
even if someone does not find what I had found from this poem, hopefully they
can appreciate it and respect it while reading its beautiful message.
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Hi Bailey. Thanks for sharing this--you do a nice job telling a personal story but connecting it to the larger belief (although that belief gets muddled--is it that people should read the poem, or that people should discover the power of making their own decisions?). You should consider breaking this into paragraphs to better organize the flow of the essay, and you could use a few more concrete images in your personal story to engage the reader. Also, your link here is actually the embed code--it got me where I wanted to go, but it looks funny. All in all, though, a good start. Let me know if you have questions.
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