Are We Free to Make Our Own Choices in Life, Or Are Our Decisions Always Limited by The

Are we free to make our own choices in life, or are our decisions always limited by the rules of society?

Whether we can make our own decisions or not in life depends uponon us. Our decisions may be different from what the society wants themus to be, and if we have enough mental strength to cope up with a strict, strong society, we might win. But if we find ourselves unable to do so, we would have to succumb to the society’s decisions.

Albert Eienstein, as a high school student, hated the strict discipline and authorities at his school. But he never let the restraints of the school to disturb his imagination, which was always free. And later, he excelled at high school and became a great physicist.

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was always told by other revolutionaries that his non- violent methods would fail miserably into protesting against the prevailing British rule in India. But he listened to the voice of his heart, and started his non-violent campaigns. The common people understood his message of love and peace, and supported him in large numbers —– something the other revolutionaries couldn’t achieve.

In the Hindi film ‘3 Idiots’, a student enters one of the topmost engineering colleges of India to discover that all the students there are constantly under stress themselves to achieve high marks at school,, and high payingheavily-paid jobs later. The teachers, too, pressure make them to focus on marks, killing all the joy ofprocess of enjoying learning about science. But this student defies all odds, listens to his heart, and never lets himself gets stressed by focusing on the knowledge instead of marks. Eventually, he becomes the best student there.

SThe society will always be the same. Fighting it requires tremendous will-power and self-confidence. It is very difficult —– that’s why most people tend to go with the decisions dictated by of the society, killing their own ambitions and desires. But only we know best what is good for us. So, we must always try to teach ourselves to listen to what our own heart has to say to us, not to the noisy criesignoring the disapproving clamour of the the crowdsociety.

This is a fine essay. What you have to say is clear and focused. Everything hangs together, and one thought flows into the next. You might, as you work on your writing, begin to experiment more with the structure of your sentences and you might look to expanding your lexicon. But all that will come with time. I have tried to tread lightly here, marking primarily changes having to do either with correctness or awkwardness, but staying as close as possible to your original intent. As you see, however, by the very end I threw caution to the end and went with drama. (This phrase does not necessarily work with the rest of the essay, and you may want to tone it down.)

In terms of what else you might do with it, if you were so inclined, let’s take that first paragraph as an example —

Whether we make our own decisions or not in life depends upon us. Our decisions may be different from what society wants them to be, and if we have enough mental strength to cope up with a strict, strong society, we might win. But if we find ourselves unable to do so, we would have to succumb to society's decisions.

You could tinker with it a little to come up with something like this perhaps —

Whether we make our own decisions in life or not depends entirely upon us. The decisions we make for ourselves may be different from those society would make for us, but if we have the strength to stand up to that society, we might win the struggle. Without that inner strength, however, we will succumb to society's demands.

Or this —

Whether we make our own decisions in life or not depends entirely upon us. The decisions we make for ourselves may be different from those society would dictate, but if we have the courage to oppose that society, we might prevail. If we have not that courage, we will be forever doomed to succumb to those demands.

Or you could take it much further, teasing those ideas out —

Whether we make our own decisions, or let society dictate them for us, is up to each one of us individually. The path we would select for ourselves may not be what the larger culture would select for us, but with enough strength and determination, we can oppose the demands of even the most authoritative and patriarchal of cultures. If we have not that inner strength, however, if we have not the courage of our own conviction, we will be forever doomed to succumb to the will of the group.

And so on.

Of course, I am interchanging the terms “society” and “culture” here, which may be imprecise.

If you would like to work on your writing, I would recommend you read and absorb the information in these two books: Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects (Martha Kolln), and Style: Lessons in Clarity and Grace (Joseph M. Williams and Gregory G. Colomb). In terms of the ideas presented here in your essay, while what you have to say is clear and coherent, it is not yet a nuanced discussion. If you have an interest in this topic, you might want to read up some in the fields of social psychology and, as pertains to the psychology of the individual in his environment, neuroscience. What you have to say about standing up to the pressures of one’s culture goes only so far. In many cases, the framework of our world is so thoroughly determined by what we know, we do not even see the blinders that our culture imposes on us. We are not aware of the limitations of our world, or our thought. Nor are we always aware of the pressures borne upon us to conform, they can be so subtle.

You might check out Incognito: The Secret Life of the Brain, by David Eagleman. It is very accessible to the lay person (I haven’t the background you have in science, and I did fine with it), and utterly fascinating. This book will open up your thinking in many directions, but with respect specifically to the topic you address in your essay, Eagleman discusses the concept of the umwelt. For a quick introduction to this concept, in Eagleman’s words, see http://www.edge.org/q2011/q11_14.html and search on the page either for the term or for Eagleman’s name. This is philosophically deeper than you had intended to go in your essay, being even more fundamental in terms of what we are and are not aware of in our own environment, but the ideas are related nonetheless. If you explore the field of social psychology at all, you will see what I mean.

If you do have an interest in these matters, or think you might, I can get you a list of books I have discovered recently that are both clear and illuminating. For the basics of the latest thinking in what is now a very biologically attuned psychology, you can also check out the various classes available in iTunes. Search on “cognitive science” or simply “psychology.” One I liked particularly was Yale’s Intro to Psychology with Paul Bloom. Unfortunately, you will not be able to see the slides the instructor uses in his lectures as he’s lecturing, but you can download the course materials (syllabus, reading list, lecture notes, tests, and so on) from http://oyc.yale.edu/psychology/psyc-110. Many of the courses available through iTunes U have similar accompanying material. It’s pretty amazing. You get no credit for working through any of this material, of course, but you can learn an awful lot. (Or maybe there is some way to get credit? I’ve never looked into it.)

Okay, that’s enough from me for now. Hope you found that helpful.

Catch you later . . .