Our Greatest Fear

First off, i should state that I disagree with this poem to say that I believe that often times our greatest fear is actually the fear of inadequacy rather than being "powerful beyond measure."  For me, a pessimistic realist, i know that the things that I say and do will often not meet expectations, and in those situations it is the inadequacy that i fear rather than my own personal power.

So, we have to write about a time when we felt like we couldn't be ourselves?  Hokay.  Here goes.  I recently (last summer) met a group of friends who go to Carmel High School.  These individuals happen to play for the football team there.  Cool.  At any rate, they came over to my house to go swimming and to just hang out.  Everything was cool the first day, because all they really knew about me was my taste in music, what TV shows i like to watch, and my interest in cars.  Far as they knew, I'm another average 17-year-old straight teenage guy.  Only one problem, straight is not something that truthfully describes me, and they'd never hung out with anyone who didn't meet that requirement.  Here we are a year hence, and I still associate with these individuals on a regular basis, and plan to live with some of these guys my sophomore year in college.  They are now very accepting of me as the guy that I am.  However, at the time, i had to play into exactly the societal expectation that these individuals had expected.  It wasn't until the 3rd or 4th time that I hung out with them that I told them the truth.  They were skeptical at first, but now everything's cool.  At any rate, that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Lady or the Tiger

Better to have loved and lost than to have loved at all. There are often times when one's own emotion intercedes in a life-and-death decision, such that death is the preferred outcome. In the case of the short story "The Lady Or The Tiger," it seems to me that the princess would be more prone to directing her lover toward the tiger, primarily because she'd rather have him dead and pained for an instant than having to live for the rest of his and her life not being able to be together. Furthermore, this whole societal construct i ssaid to have barbaric tendencies, which would also make sense for the decision. All things considered, the emotional attachment had the power to override the concern for life. The tiger came out of the door.