Business 9, Lesson 150 – Procrastination Kills

This week in Business I have been learning about why people do not start their own business despite all of the advantages.  One of the reasons that Dr. North spent a lot of time talking about is procrastination.  In one of the video lessons this week, he stated that he believes that procrastination kills, and I agree with him.

If you have not taken the Business course with Dr. North, you may think that I am over exaggerating and that there is nothing wrong with procrastination.  Before I started the 9th Grade Business course, I thought that as well.  But Dr. North gave many points that procrastination is not a habit you want to keep.  In this essay, I am going to show two examples proving that procrastination can kill.

Example One

When I was younger, I loved to write stories.  I would come up with story ideas and write them down, then get lazy and tell myself that I’ll finish writing it later.  “Later,” never happened and now, years later, I have a notebook full of incomplete stories that I never finished because I procrastinated.

Procrastination killed my ideas.

Example Two

A man starts waking up in the middle of the night with extreme chest pains and struggling to breath.  A few days later he also starts to feel lightheaded randomly.  His wife gets worried about him and finds out that he is displaying warning signs of a heart attack.  She informs her husband and advises him to go to a doctor.  The man brushes it off and says he will go the next day.  When the next day comes, he brushes it off again.  The man continues to do this and eventually a week passes.  Then two weeks, then three, then almost a month.

One night, the man goes to sleep and then next morning wakes up in a hospital bed surrounded by machines.  His wife informs him that he had a heart attack in the middle of the night and that he almost did not make it.

In this very extreme example, the man procrastinated so much that he almost lost his life. 

Conclusion

As you can see, procrastination is a habit that you should learn how to break.  If you notice yourself procrastinating, I strongly encourage you to start trying to break this habit.  It is not a harmless habit and it can cause serious harm to yourself, and possibly those around you. 

English 9, Lesson 160 – Life Changing Impact

This week I started reading Frederick Douglass’ autobiography.  Frederick Douglass was an escaped slave who was assumed to be born in 1818.   In one of the chapters I read this week, Douglass talked about being sent to a plantation in Baltimore.

Douglass was seven or eight when his master sent him to Baltimore to work at a new plantation.  His new master was a married man, and his wife was described to be an angel.  Douglass talked about his new mistress started to teach him how to read and write.  His lessons were put to an end after his master found out.  His master managed to convince his wife that teaching Douglass how to read would make him discontented and his wife believed him.  Douglass would try to teach himself in many ways, but he would get caught by his mistress and would be punished for it.  But Douglass would not give up.  He found other means to learn, one of them by asking the local white boys to teach him in exchange for food. 

These lessons that Douglass’ mistress gave him ignited a passion for learning within him.  He was determined to learn how to read and write, even if he had to face punishment for it.  Douglass’ new ability to read opened a whole new world to him and was the first step to him escaping from slavery.

Because of the small lessons Douglass’ mistress gave him, he was able to escape slavery.  Talk about butterfly effect.

I can confidently say that I have experienced a similar thing.  I am an aspiring actress and I have been working towards this dream since I was four years old.  My whole love for acting and performing came from one incident during the summer of 2011, when I was three years old.  I do not remember anything that happened that day, but my parents have told me the story countless times.

At the time, I was still living in America.  That summer my parents decided to take me to a street fair in one of our neighboring towns.  There was a lady putting on a small play for young children, and my parents and I stopped to watch it.  The woman was asking children from the audience to come up and help her put on the play.  I immediately raised my hand and the woman chose me.  The play she was putting on was The Three Billy Goats and I was chosen as “Billy Goat #3.” 

My parents said that they knew I had a talent for performing as soon as I stepped up on the stage.  To me, it sounded like a eureka moment.  After that summer, my parents started putting me in acting, singing, and dancing classes and I have not stopped since.

If my parents had not decided to stop and watch the show, I may not have ever been able to find my love for acting.

As you can see, both Douglass and I experienced small moments that led to something much bigger.  Who would have thought that a small decision could lead to people finding their dreams?

English 9, Lesson 150 – As a Writer of an Autobiography About Life in the Woods, Would You Spend More Pages Describing an Ant War or Loons?

This week, I continued reading Walden’s Pond by Henry David Thoreau.  In this essay I am going to answer the question “if I was the writer of an autobiography about life in the woods, would I spend more time describing an ant war or loons?”

For those that are not taking the 9th Grade English course with RPC or for students who have not reached this lesson yet, you may be wondering why the essay topic is so random.  For some background, I am currently reading Henry David Thoreau’s autobiography called Walden’s Pond.  The book describes Thoreau’s time while living the woods next to Walden’s Pond.  In one of the chapters I had to read this week, Thoreau described an ant war he witnessed and loons, a type of bird that lives on the pond with him. 

To answer the question, I would not spend time on an ant war or loons unless I found something extremely interesting about them.  When I write, fiction or non-fiction, I always make sure that the information I am giving is interesting for me and the reader.  Personally, I do not think there is anything thrilling about ant wars or loons and I doubt many will find them attention-grabbing.

Out of all of the lengthy descriptions I have read in the book so far, only the ant war makes sense to me.  Thoreau used the ant war to demonstrate his view of the political drama at that point in time.  The ‘war’ was a battle between red ants and black ants.  The red ants represented the people while the black ants represented the politicians.  He noted how there would be three or four red ants fighting against one black ant, but the black ant would always win because it had more power than the red ants.  He used the war to demonstrate that the number of people does not matter if the opponent has more power.

Thoreau also talked about loons, a type of bird that lives on the pond with him.  The common loon looks like a duck with black, white, and grey feathers.  Thoreau hated these birds with a passion and made it obvious in his writing.  He thought their calls were ‘demonic’, and I cannot blame him for thinking that.  At first, I thought that this was one of Thoreau’s odd views of the world.  However, when I found a recording of their calls on YouTube I cannot say I blame him for hating the bird.  Loon bird calls are the classic horror movie bird calls that Hollywood loves to use.

As you can see, I would not include ant wars or loons if I ever wrote an autobiography about living in the woods.  I think that Thoreau’s description of the ant war was a clever way to show his opinion on the politics of that time.  If I ever do end up writing an autobiography about living in the woods, I will be sure to look out for things that could correspond to my views on things happening in the world.

English 9, Lesson 145 – Is it Important for a Person to Summarize Their Philosophy of Life in an Early Chapter of An Autobiography?

This week I have been reading more of Walden’s Pond by Henry David Thoreau.  I have been reading the book for a few weeks now, and I am still very confused with many of Thoreau’s views of life.  For today’s writing prompt I have to answer the question “is it important for a person to summarize their philosophy of life in an early chapter of their autobiography?” 

Personally, I think that autobiographies that are focused on a certain period of the author’s life should have a quick summary of the person’s life philosophy in the first chapters, while autobiographies that focus on a person’s entire life does not require one.  However, I do think that these summaries are not necessary if you keep your writing clear and concise. 

For example, Solomon Northup’s autobiography focused only on twelve years of his life and he did not talk about his world view in the early chapters, but his writing was so clear and descriptive that you did not need him to specifically explain his life philosophy. 

In Henry Thoreau’s autobiography, he says many things that sounds ludicrous to the average person and offers no explanation.  For example, he believes that condiments will poison a person to death and owning a mat to wipe your feet is a sin.

I do not think that it is important for a person to summarize their philosophy of life in an early chapter.  However, if the author plans to say absurd things with no explanation, like Thoreau, I believe it would be very important and helpful.

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