“A nation as a society forms a moral person, and every member of it is personally responsible for his society” -Thomas Jefferson

         Every individual is just that:  an individual.  Our thoughts are unique, our consciences differed, and our decisions idiosyncratic.  However, as humans began interacting, they realized certain situations only had so many varying approaches.  Humans find comfort in commonality and companionship.  When such was found, factions began to form, systems evolved to suit these general desires, and civilization was defined.  Society is the result of the human desire and need for commonality. 

         Societies themselves resemble individuals.  An American society is much different than an Oceanic society.  This is most visibly understood through the art produced, clothing worn, government systems abided by, and family values upheld.  Individuals in these regions adapted their lifestyles to the climates and locations of their homelands, and their societies developed according to the common beliefs these locations spawned.  We should define a society, then, as what the majority of its inhabitants declare as right and beneficial in their opinions.  We then must ask why, in many societies, the poor are the majority and do not reap the benefits the society offers.  This question exemplifies why we are beholden to society.  Society is the constant hope of the majority for improvement and satisfaction.  The poor’s sole hope lies in society, for society itself is the only thing that has the possibility of uplifting their suffering.   The middle class, if it exists, is beholden to society because, many times, those in the middle class exemplify society’s ability to uplift the suffering of the poor.  Many middle class individuals are the product of the opportunities society holds for the poor coming to life and working in their favor.  The upper class is beholden to society because it has the direct ability to define society’s values.  Money does, in many societies, make the world go around. 

         A society is like a painting; few artists have the ability to project their exact thoughts onto a surface.  An ideal society is the closest portrayal of human thought, using many different paints and surfaces to produce the most aesthetically pleasing overall effect.  Each human in a society has the ability to add his or her shade of color to the mix.  Yet, it has been proven time and time again that while one color may take over the picture, it eventually chips away to reveal the underlying shades.  In our obligation to contribute our paint to the canvas, the canvas holds the obligation of a pleasing effect to the viewer.  We paint with the hope that our individual brushstrokes cross paths with others to create a stronger effect in our favor than a sole line of color could ever produce.  In our contributions to society, society must, ideally, come through for us at some point.  The cycle of what is beholden to whom is in the efforts we put into society and the effects it produces for us.  Thus, the painting is never finished; where pieces chip off, we repaint them with new brushstrokes in the hope of either blending into the background or beginning a new color scheme.

         Yet, there are always those who realize the poor’s faith in society to bring them up is not enough to truly complete the desired action.  There are circumstances when human idiosyncrasies individualize them from society’s general beliefs and right within a system seems synonymous to wrong.  I bring up Susan B. Anthony and the women’s suffrage movement.  We must not consider the poor only those who lack money, but those who are downtrodden and seen as weak in society.  Those with power deemed women unable to vote and inferior to men.  Society was based on male dominance in most aspects of life.  So, Susan objected.  She protested against the documented laws of United States and the unwritten laws of American society.  She waited in poll lines to cast her ballot because her ideas of what was “right” and “beneficial” contrasted with those of society.  The Civil Rights movement followed the same pattern.  Blacks had no rights even though they lived in the same locations and were just as human as whites.  Society did not allow for their freedom let alone opportunity for freedom.  So, like Anthony, they protested.  They made different colored brush strokes on a canvas whose color scheme did not match the new designs.   

         Ironically, these movements rose through the same mechanisms their society had risen with.  They were individuals who had, what they thought, unique dreams and hopes.  They found others who thought their hopes unique as well.  Eventually, a faction formed and ideas for a new type of society flourished, slowly at first, but then like wildfire.  Like the creation of oil paint, once one individual realized the colors could be brighter and paint could stay wet longer, he attempted to sell it to others.  The new method of painting seemed logical to him.  Few would try the new paint because humans fear change.  However, once word of the new paint spread, many would begin using it and oil paint would become the new norm of society.  It would soon be replaced by photography, film, and interactive art forms.  Nobody knows what art will come next.  Society gives us all the ability to answer that question.  

“Success builds character, failure reveals it” - Dave Checkett

     “If you don’t get lost, there’s a chance you may never be found.”  I do not know who said this quotation.  In fact, the speaker him or herself might not even know.  That’s the thing about quotations:  their meanings change.  Understanding thyself follows the same irony.  Who one is at birth is much different than who one is in seventh grade, at one’s wedding, and on one’s deathbed.  The farther we walk along life’s journey, the deeper we delve into ourselves, finding that the potholes and dead ends slowing us down along the way just might end up sending us down the right path.

     To know oneself, at one time or another, is to know what one lives for, that is to say what one’s purpose is for waking up every morning and getting out of bed.  If one is ill, one’s purpose at the time might be just that: to find the willpower to get up for another day.  It might be a long-term goal, such as getting into college.  It might be to find food for oneself or one’s family.  Whatever keeps one walking along the journey of life defines who one is.  This is not to say that getting into college defines an individual.  The emotions behind the initial purpose for getting out of bed in the morning are the true definition.  If one hopes to go to college to please one’s parents, at that point in life that individual is submissive.  If one hopes to attend college to find the cure for cancer, outreach and hope define that individual.  All actions in life can be and are simplified to an emotion.  The choice to accept or reject the particular emotion along one’s journey is an act of knowing oneself. 

     What if the emotion or action leads to a dead end or pothole?  Did one, then, not know oneself?  I do not believe so on one condition: if the individual understands why the emotion was wrong to harness and learns from one’s mistakes.  So, in most cases, knowing oneself is also having the ability to understand what one is not and what one should not be (according to one’s own morals, not society) until one comes across the correct path to take at the fork in the road, rather than giving up at dead ends. 

     The value of understanding oneself is not an eternal glory, but rather a fleeting privilege.  This stems from the fact that knowing oneself changes every time we turn a corner.  If one can grasp the moments in which he fully understands himself, one can truly appreciate life.  Life itself is made up of the little moments of realization, those instances when we understand our purposes.  These moments are our most vivid memories.  They are the memories of the emotions that triggered the realization of purpose.  We remember getting the acceptance letter to a university for the emotion of happiness, for one’s journey has been furthered.  We remember the rejection letter for the sense of dejection, for we seem to have reached a dead end.  Yet, having the ability to remember the rejection with knowledge that one moved on and accepted a different path is what defines the value of knowing oneself.  With confidence in one’s character, one has the ability to move around barriers.  One has the courage to get lost along the way.    

     Our weaknesses allow us the chance to get lost.  Lately, I have determined that my greatest weakness is taking advice from others, acknowledging that my way of doing something might not be the best.  I relate this, specifically, to writing my college essays.  I take my writing very personally.  I used to think that when I wrote the first draft and loved it there was no more work to be done.  The essay was my essence.  College essays do not follow that mindset in the least.  I would accept the comments of my tutor to change this idea or to throw in more metaphors, simply because she was my tutor and I trusted that she knew what she was doing in the college process.  However, once my mother and father began reading my essays to do the final check for understanding and grammar they began giving me some ideas to push my essays further.  I mainly accepted my father’s advice for he is lawyer:  writing is his job.  The struggle came with my mother, the architect.  At first, I ignorantly rejected all her ideas, claiming she didn’t understand individualized writing due to her math-focused career.  I rejected her ideas claiming if I added them into my essay, the essay would not be from me and I would be cheating the system.  I rejected her ideas because deep-down I knew, most of the time, she was right:  I could delve into a topic more and I could make the third topic sentence sound more like me.  I was unable to accept the fact that my writing, however important or personal it was to me, could improve.  Every time I would ask her to read an essay, I set myself up for the struggle to follow.  I asked her to read the essays to prove that my ideas were best and hers were inferior.  Yet, she would always have a comment, and the comment would be right the majority of the time.  So, I began what I thought to be giving in under pressure.  I took her advice and reworked my essay, keeping her idea in mind.  Yet, I would not let go of my writing voice and my main purpose.  It was then that I started seeing how wrong I had been.  My essays were improving.  Yet, they were not doing so because of the actual ideas she threw out.  They improved because I began rewriting my drafts, understanding that my initial thoughts could always alter.  I also began to realize why I wanted to go to college.  It was not to please my parents or relatives.  It was not to get a better job afterwards.  It was to turn my weaknesses into strengths:  I needed to surround myself with people whose ideas were just as good, and many times much better than my own.  In an advanced college community, rejecting the opinions of others will get you nowhere.  One is almost obligated to collaborate to find the new computer chip or to understand Aristotle.  The entire college process, as tedious as it has been, has taught me about my true weaknesses.  I am so thankful it did.

     My greatest strength is found within my greatest weakness.  I am extremely motivated and will complete every action to the best of my ability.  If I have done so and understand that I put all of me into something, then I am happy.  That is not to say that I am happy with failure.  If I have put everything I have into a task and “fail,” I do not give up.  I try new approaches or move on.  But I do not give up.  This leads to my greatest weakness many times, for I am so “gung-ho” for my own ideas that I, at times, do not listen to those of others.  Yet, I would rather have this strength any day and have to combat the weakness that goes along with it.  On the topic of the college process, I have not given up.  The amount of work one has to do to even be considered for a great college today amazes me.  Last year, I would wake up every Saturday morning at 8:00 to simulate a real SAT or ACT.  I took each of these tests twice, understanding that I did my best the first time, but knowing that if I dug deeper I could do better.  This fall I wrote my essays, played varsity field hockey, was captain of the debate team, babysat, and did my schoolwork.  I did not give up any of these tasks, even though putting my all into each one at the same time was stressful to say the least.  But, I committed to each, and would not give that commitment up, even though it became more difficult to balance all these activities as the year went on.  I made sure I did each to the best of my ability.  I took leadership roles on every team, stayed up extremely late to study, and found time to write essays.  I do not regret a single hour of sleep lost.  I have learned so much about myself this past fall.  I know now that if I want to get something done, I will, and I will do it well.  Yet, I have also learned that my way is not always the best way to get something done.  Listening to the opinions of others and connecting two ideas further humans along their own journeys. 

     Discussing and writing about my strengths and weaknesses is a difficult task.  I think this is mainly because I do not truly know myself yet.  I am finding out who I am, and my strengths one day might be my weaknesses the next.  I am afraid to signify a weakness because I am afraid that I will not know how to turn it into a strength.  I am afraid to discuss what I believe to be my strengths because certainty is fleeting in anyone’s life, especially that of a 17-year-old girl.  However, the most difficult tasks are the ones which teach us the most about ourselves and the society in which we live.  Sometimes the best things for us are those which seem to hurt the most at the time.  Yet, we cannot focus solely on putting one foot in front of the other.  We must think about what will happen once we reach a fork in the road or a pothole.  We must also think about the end of our journeys, if they even have an end at all.  Walking on a broken leg will not make it heal.  Yet, if we wait, contemplating how to run again, time will heal the leg enough to allow us to begin walking again.  Weaknesses do not turn into strengths in a day or even seven years.  Strengths could turn into weaknesses in a millisecond.  How we approach these twists and shifts defines who we are and who we strive to be.  Giving up in the face of failure might allow one to walk again, but dancing might never be possible.