A Look Into the Life of Lauren

To put it plainly, wealth can change you. I don’t mean simply by providing you with more money, but rather the fact that it can change your entire persona. The majority of society desires more wealth, as they can then purchase more luxuries. However, be careful what you wish for, because money can destroy your relationships with others.  Wealth may provide some with a sense of superiority over others, therefore causing them to continually portray themselves as “better” than the rest of society. This can result in the wealthy disregarding the people of their past, since they now have a desire to bond with those of their same class. But why does wealth even cause some to determine who they can or cannot associate with? As far as I’m concerned, if you enjoy being around somebody, then it doesn’t matter whether they are rich or poor.  Washington from “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” takes his desire of wealth to a whole new level. He finds it necessary to drug any of his ...

One concept I have never understood is why people so often change how they live their lives to a way that is less pleasureable for them . This may arise from our minds telling us that the change will make our lives “better,” or it could be from a belief that this will make ourselves appear more superior to others. Members of our society often desire a certain lifestyle and therefore try to push their way into that new life, which often does not result in the positive way in which they intended for. Nick Carraway, from The Great Gatsby , associates this concept with his own life, as he says, “Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life” (184). Nick has accepted the fact that he does not belong in the East, as he finds comfort at his true home in the West. Nick additionally believes that Gatsby is a Westerner since he is very passionate about trying to win Daisy’s heart...

“'Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone,’ he told me, ‘just remember that all the people in this world haven’t had the advantages that you’ve had.'" This quote from The Great Gatsby is a piece of advice that much of society should consider. Many people are so quick to judge others, yet they are unfamiliar with the lives of those individuals. This is one thing that I have never understood. You cannot believe that somebody is “weird” or “gross” just based on the little background information that you have of them. I have witnessed this issue throughout elementary, middle and high school and I suspect that I will continue to see it in the future. I remember how in middle school, students would judge others because they thought that doing so would make them more popular. Now in high school, I’ve realized that some people still hold the same belief. This is ridiculous to me because what makes people agree with the fact that being rude increases one’s own self-esteem? ...