Bailey Wainwright

Ms.Marcum

ERWC

Per.1

12/5/16

How to Gain Value to Ones Life

How does someone put value to another's life? To gain value on ones life that

one person should experience many things and make themselves happy. Life is not about the

negative things that happen it is about making the best out of the worst. People need to realize

that being happy and experiencing new things adds worth to their lives.

When one is faced with horrible things they cannot let that affect their positive

attitude. In the Essential Man written by Chris Jones presents a famous movie critic name Roger

Ebert. Ebert was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and went through many surgeries that caused

him to stop eating, drinking and talking normally. When this all happened he realize that we take

many things for granted and that being happy is what life is all about to make other less happy

is a crime to make ourselves unhappy is where all crime starts. (Jones,7). Ebert creates this

idea that life should be full of happiness but on the hand in Shakespeares soliloquy Hamlet

expresses that life is a long tragic place. Hamlets life was flipped upside down when he father

passed away because it is set out to believe that his uncle kill his father, and now that uncle is

going to marry his mother. This causes Hamlet to believe life is horrible to die, to sleep no

more(Shakespeare,9).At this moment he is claiming that sleeping is one step closer to death and

it makes life not so long, but being asleep or dead is not better because you cannot experience
new things that can create new happiness. Many of us realize that we need to change the negative

things in the world to make it a better place.

Making changes is a hard thing and most of us realize that but we cannot let negative

affect our society anymore. The rapper Tupac wrote a song Changes and it sets the tone of how

the world needs to be a better place for people to live in. He writes take the evil out of people,

theyll be acting right(Tupac,27). Tupac demonstrates that world will be a happier place if the

evil fades away which cause all people to help one another and get along. He expressed this idea

because he experienced many social problems that affect his relationship with life. With the

experiences you face it creates your life to have worth because it makes you realize the

importance in life. The older you are you realize the more valuable life is.

When time passes you see and experience many things, that changes the way we look on

the worth of living. In the poem Ethics by Linda Pastan presents the idea that when we are young

we do not realize the life we have but once we age we recognize what life is worth. She quotes

I know how that woman and painting and season are almost one and all beyond the saving of

children.(Pastan,24). In the poem the professor ask his students what would they save an elderly

woman or a famous painting, as a student she did not have answer but as she got older she realize

that they are all equal. Pastan conveys the reader that becoming older is an eye opener because

the elderly is wiser, from their experiences.

In conclusion the value of life is by happiness and what you have experienced. Life

cannot be changed by negativity because it does not help you gain value to your life, Roger Ebert

went through horrible things but still made it positive and that's what life's about. Being sad and

negative does not help the way you value life just like Hamlet because he rather sleep than
experience new things in life. When you experience many things as you get older it puts worth

towards your life just as Tupac and Linda Pastan present. Making your life happy and full of new

experiences adds a whole new value to life.