From Kendra!

There were many parts in this text that resonated with me. The idea of opportunity was one of the main points that stuck out to me. Mike Rose says, “These definitions seem pretty disembodied to me, devoid of the particulars that compose an opportunity” (8) when talking about the basic dictionary definitions of opportunity. I agree with what he is saying because there are many factors that contribute to not only that opportunities rarely fall out of the sky, but what factors influence on whether or not people will actually take advantage of their opportunities. If you’re entire life you are praised and told you can do anything you put your mind to then you are much more likely to take advantage of every opportunity you manage to find. On the other hand if you are constantly looked down upon by society, your family, your friends, your teachers, or the media, then chances are you won’t want to take the risk in fear of failing. In speaking of individual effort in achievement and personal motivation, Rose says, “Where the confusion sets in is when we generalize from this fact to an overall model of human development and achievement” (9). It’s like saying every person can grow up to be whatever they want. Who knows. This may be true to some extent. When a child is born healthy, they may at this point have the potential to do, or be, anything, but what happens when the baby is taken home from the hospital? They suddenly have to face the reality of whatever family setting, race, gender, community, society, world they are to grow up in.
(Side note/venting/questioning: How can people judge other people… ever? They don’t know their whole life story. They don’t know what they’ve been through. They don’t know anything about what has made them who they are. Yet we judge people every day. Is that because of society? Is it because of the way we were raised? But taking that into consideration…who am I to judge those who judge? It really is a vicious circle.)

At one point Rose states, “Think of what we don’t read and hear” (27). There is so much to these eight simple words. The world has so much in it. Everything has a story; something to teach us. For example, I went for a run this morning. I ran about 6 miles. I am on the cross country team, so there were 9 other people running with me. Some of them went further than me others went a little bit of a shorter distance, but we were all on the same path. While I was running I started looking at the houses that I passed by. I noticed that the houses were painted different colors, had different plants in the yards, different cars in the driveways, some had fences in front, others didn’t. After I noticed all these things, I began to think. I wonder who lives in these houses. I wonder what their families are like. I wonder if they have kids. I wonder what their kids will grow up to be. I wonder if they’re happy. The minute I thought this a car pulled out of the driveway I was running passed. She almost hit me. I jumped. She waved an apology and drove away. I thought. I wonder where she’s going. I wonder if she has kids in bed. I wonder what would have happened if she has hit me. How would that have changed her day? How would it have changed my day or the rest of my life? There is so much in the world. We only see a fraction of a fraction of everything that’s thrown at us every single day.

I wonder what the world would be like if people actually took advantage of the opportunities we have to simply think.