Homework Market Project: Compromise Isn’t Always a Good Choice

The word ‘compromise‘ is commonly comprehended by many as to come to terms, to settle a dispute by mutual understanding, to meet each other halfway. It is actually the correct definition but it is definitely not a requisite thing in life as most of us presume. As Edmund Burke once stated,’All government–indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act–is founded on compromise.’ The word compromise indubitably holds a positive touch. When we hear about someone’s act of compromise it clearly melts our hearts.

However, it would not be imprecise to say that compromising on your goals is not always a reliable option. Sometimes you need to stand by your beliefs and principles against all odds. Many a time you have to stay determined and focused without compromising to make your mark in the pages of history. Whether we talk about leaders, sportsman or human beings which are adored by friends and foes alike, history brings testimony to the fact that they don’t compromise and standing by their beliefs to achieve their goals.

Jeremy Lin, 27, the professional American Basketball player of NBA is the best illustration of how not compromising and standing for your dreams turn your life on the path of success and fame. In his college days he was considered the weakest guy on the team but today he has established himself as a strong, fast-paced offensive player. No player would have faced so many racial issues as he did during his college. He regularly heard bigoted jeers at games. Being an Asian his fellows used to tease him by saying him to go back to his country, many a time he was made to sit on the bench instead of playing though he was a team player he never loses his ambition, he never reacted to the chants. He once said ‘I expect it, I am used to it, this is what it is’. He acclaimed his NBA success to playing without pressure. He said ‘I am not in a battle with what everybody else thinks’. Due to his standpoint and not heeding to people marks he is considered as the most famous Asian-American basketball player today in NBA.

Another prominent example from history is the great leader ‘Martin Luther King Jr’ who through his actions and fortitude showed the world how he did not compromise on his dream and brought an end to slavery and racial discrimination. Despite much opposition, allegations, and agony, he stood by his point and combat racial inequality using non-violence movement. Had he feared the admonitions of the people and compromised on his ambition , there would never have been a revolutionary change in the society.

From the above discussion, there are no second thoughts to the notion that those who do not compromise on their principles, face hardships and oppositions with courage and fortitude attain a place in the memories of people that even death fails to obscure these memories. Stephen Hawking, Oprah Winfrey, Malala Yousafzai, and J.k Rowling are the prominent people whose affiliation with their goals not only earned them fame but also made them a symbol of courage and motivation to others. Consequently, one should not compromise for the fear of failure and opposition but one should work hard and face the hardships with courage so that he may make his mark in this world.

Competition or Cooperation are certainly two opposite words. Beyond the shadow of a doubt, both play a significant role in our stages of life. Bertrand Russell in his book ‘The Conquest of Happiness’ compiles a chapter ‘Competition’ which he included in a part named ‘Causes of Unhappiness’. Many a person may not consent with him or me supporting his point that competition is actually is not a cause of satisfaction. Having in a competition with someone only gives you depression and lavishing all your time thinking about outshining the people around. Though competition urges you to become not only better but best which is actually an admiring thing, but nowadays in the avarice of becoming best one forgets about one fellow humans. In one’s zest of competing with others, one often neglect one’s family, friends or children no matter how endearing they all are, but his self-esteem does not allow him to think about anything else. Whereas, word Cooperation, on the other hand, itself holds a beautiful meaning.

Bertrand Russell writes ‘The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation‘. We are living a hectic life today. We are always busy in something or other. Similarly, we are also occupied in being egocentric. With so much advancement in life, so much struggle is needed. http://www.homeworkmarket.me/ Indubitably we are living a better life than our ancestors, but this modern life is lacking tranquility. When we come in competition with someone we not only become obsessed with it but also form rivalries. Secondly when in a competition we only depend on ourselves. We do not care whether we would be able to reach this thing or not, we never think of its uses or drawbacks, what we only think of is to outclass everyone or to prove ourselves to everyone.

Competition to attain influence, power and dominance over others set the stage for the worst nightmares of humanity. Hitlers’ obsession for power and its consequences in the form of World War II consumed the lives of 6 million people. Wars and violent conflicts are the terrible illustrations of competition between the opposing forces which exploit each and every resource in their possession to attain might and dominance.

On the contrary, cooperating with other does not only build good relations but also enrich your mind with new and unique ideas. When we cooperate with others we meet new people, we get to know new things, we share thoughts, we help each other and most of all we succeed together. When we reach our goal with each other’s help we celebrate it together, we can assure that there is someone always to back us up in our hard times. There exist so many examples from history, literature or even present time that shows how collaboration helped them in their tough journeys of life. Whether it was a cooperative society, cooperative leaders or cooperative humans all proved themselves to be followed as an example.

The processes of cooperation have played a major role in shaping the history. Let’s discuss the example of UN (United Nations), an intergovernmental organization that aims at promoting international cooperation and resolution of conflicts through dialogues and negotiation rather than deadly conflicts and tormenting wars. The UN’s mission is to preserve world peace and create harmony. After the second world war, a joint declaration by USA, UK, Northern Ireland, China, Belgium, Australia, CostaRica, Canada, Cuba and many other states was signed. UN was formed to get victory over the enemies of humanity. For liberty, independence, religious freedom, human benefits, and justice, all states cooperated with one another. 70 years of UN is an emphatic reminder of the notion that international cooperation is the only way to defeat the monster of terrorism, hunger, gender inequality, unemployment, and poverty. Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Food Aid, Aid to Refugees, Protecting Children, Peacekeeping missions, War Crimes prosecution and Fighting AIDS are some of the notable achievements that would have never been attained by one person.

Sports provides us with the best example of cooperation. How all members of the team forget their personal identity and work only for the benefit of the team. Although sports are competitive by nature when there is a cooperation between the members they motivate each other and play as a single entity, they pave their way to winning.

Many people especially parents believe that a competitive state is healthy for children as it prepares them to face the modern society but I believe they should tell their children more about cooperation as it helps children learn to communicate, to build good relation in society and mark their name in society by helping others.

Many people assume the word education as the knowledge gained in schools. This is common mistake as we all relate the word education to only schools, colleges or universities. Living a restless life, many beings especially parents or guardian thinks they are meeting their duties of giving their children a good future by sending their children to best schools. And why should not they be satisfied? Sending their children to best schools, providing them with all facilities, fulfilling their demands is all what makes them best and earn them prestige. We are living in the 21st century, certainly school is important, today without school education, getting a job is beyond the bounds of possibility as all career paths require education. Education is a base and everybody knows its importance too. Not only a person but also a nation can never survive without modern education.

Education is defined as the acquisition of values, skills or habits other than knowledge.You can learn skills from school of course, the main purpose of an institution is to spread knowledge, so you can become rich in knowledge of this world too.

Schools obviously teach its pupil about values. Institutions improve your personality , it gives you the knowledge of universe too but you can never guarantee reverence and success by only getting education from schools.

A little girl is bragging about her living standard, about the money they have, about her big house in front of her friends who do not belong to a very rich family or do not live in a big house. In short the girl is degrading her fellows. Whose mistake is it now that the girl is behaving in a conceited manner? Should the parents of little girl’s fellows complain to the school staff for her manners? No. Its not their concern that how is the girl’s nature. Of course, its the duty of parents to give them proper time, to make sure they are in a good company, they are not hurting their friends or fellows, they show good behavior to everyone. Parents can not complain to teachers or any institution for the bad behavior of their children at home because its not their job. Their job is only to teach them right or wrong, next comes the duty of parents to see if they observe what they are being taught.

Influence play a great role. Influence is created on anyone without any exertion of force. A mother can make her daughter behave the way she wants by rebuking her at the time but not always. Chastising does not always work. Sometimes too much criticizing or enforcement convert things from bad to worse. Mostly we repeat things just in anger to show others what we can do or not. On the other hand influence can be made without any enforcement. When you do some good act or deed, everyone try to follow it. There is a common saying; ‘Man is known by the company he keeps’

We do what people around us do. We follow things that impress us. Influence is not always good but its definitely very powerful. A good leader always leaves an influence on its people, similarly children always follows their parents’ footsteps. There are many leaders from history who showed how their influence on people led the whole nation to path of success. Still today, leaders try to influence people through their actions, dedication and passion to obtain their objectives.

A worker will never do his job properly if his boss does not take any interest in work. An executive’s charge is to create his good influence on his workers. Though he hire all well-educated or deserving candidates but why should they put so much effort in their work if the head himself does not care. Despite that they are graduates from good institutions but still comes the point we are discussing; education does not only comes from schools or it does not only mean learning or outshining others by your knowledge. It includes so many other things that result when you learn from your people around, this is why most people will agree with me that education results from Influence other than school.

Its a common adage ‘No body is perfect’. A lot of people believe in this saying but there are some who claims to be perfect or credits their perfectness for all that they have achieved. What does the word ‘Perfection’ really imply? Flawlessness, faultlessness,sublimity, magnificent; all interpret the word Perfection. Have we ever met a person in all our life who is exemplary by all means? Frankly, No. I would rather say that Perfection is the result of success not success is the result of perfection. This is certain that perfection is an impossible goal, many people easily accept their flaws or faults and give up. But this definitely not the right thing to do, accepting your faults is a good thing but giving up is at the same time the worst thing. We should never give up because we do not find ourselves perfect instead of that we should continue our struggles in the face of adversities with the talents we possess. We don’t need to be perfect but we need to be excellent in what we do. Hard work matters more for success than perfection and of course the ingredient of luck makes the recipe more delicious.

How true has Aristotle said ‘Pleasure in the job puts perfection in the work’

Work needs to be done with pleasure, enjoyment and concentration. When we back down because we don’t feel perfection in it, we can never succeed. When we aim only for perfection we only surrender ourselves to stress. In continuous thirst of outshining others and becoming the best,we just waste our precious time and energy. The truth is really not that we admire perfection but we are envious of each other. We examine things on their face value and miss out necessary details though we know that we are living in an imperfect world filled with disparities, injustices, grievances and struggle at every step. If we run after perfection we will get nothing but if we do our ordinary work with assiduousness or excellency, it will definitely bring perfection in our lives.

There exists so many examples from history, literature or present that manifest how struggle of the leaders or heroes made their imperfect lives perfect that still today everyone admire.

Lets take a glance back at the life of Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of bulb. His invents influenced so many lives around the world, in fact influenced the whole world. He was taught at home by his mother. At and early age he developed hearing deficiency. He sold candies and newspaper on train. He sometimes sold vegetables to surcharge his income. His life was not perfect by any means. He faced so many problems but that did not refrain him from struggling. His inventions include Fluoroscopy, Telegraph Improvements, Motion Pictures, Mining and Rubber. He did not invent this all at one time but he spent his life striving for these. If he had given up, we would have all been living in dark today. His life was not exemplary but after trying and succeeding he made it ideal and achieved perfection out of misery. Today people remember him by his work, many places have been named after him, museum has been built after him. And these places are created to honor his achievements.

There would be hardly any one in the world who likes complainers but along with it is also true that we all do complains for one reason or other as Dejan Stojanovic said;

‘Some people complain there are too many people on earth,
Some people complain about secret societies,
Some people accuse others of not being able to wake up early.
Almost all people complain about something.’

Bu the question is do we really need to complain for every little thing? Some think that people who make their desires or needs known to others by making noise (by complaining) are the ones who get what they want. This is a common thing that instead of changing what we don’t like, we chose complaining as the first choice. We spend too much energy in complaining which can be used to make things better. Though complaining does not always work, we still use it as a strategy.

From a playing game to a bigger exam, when we are about to lose; we protest. Since our childhood, we have been listening to a story ‘The Boy Who Cried Wolf‘. This story has always been told as a cautionary tale, the boy who cried for sympathy through unjustified ways from others definitely got it but lost their trust. Similarly, when in a game or exam we complain; we may achieve our goals but not respect. Everyone around us consider it as an achievement gained by tricky ways devoid of any praise. Like an old famous saying;

The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

This is an American-idiom that conveys idea that the most noticeable or loudest problems are the most likely ones to get attention. This means if you tell your problems loud enough to every one, you will likely get their attention but at the same time it is true that no one likes the squeaky wheel. One may get what one wants by begging or complaining but it creates an impression of weakness at the same time. Every indvidual is different from his fellows. We all have our priorities. We all think differently. Some think complaining for needs is their right. Some says its right to make noise to make your needs known. Others define complaining as weakness, way to hide your failure. Simply put, we all have our own ways of thinking and like so many people in the world I believe that the only way to attain something is through dedication and hard work. If that does not work, instead of putting and wasting vital energy in complaining we should concentrate it in solving the problem by utilizing every mean in possession. Rather than complaining its better to think of our blessings first.

Unhappiness meets us everywhere. Be it rich or poor, young or old; whoever you meet you will find that each one has its own trouble. It’s true that life surprise us at every step with new challenges, the struggle for life will always interfere with your existence. Some says that it is not true as there are some who possess everything (rich). But as I said we are humans, we love to assume things. A poor person is so occupied with his struggle for existance that he mostly found complaining of his wretched life. The rich is so worried about his business and making money (outshining others) that he also complains of his busy and hustled life. The young students always complain of their hard study life. To put in simple words, we are all struggling for success, we are all running after something. Some are busy in pleasing their GODS, some to be in good books of teachers, some in making their parents proud, some in proving themselves. Who is happy then? The simple answer is ‘Those who has become emancipated from the materialistic territory of life and find peace by helping out their fellow humans through every mean available’. They are the one who will find life much more mirthful than it used to be.

One of the sources of unhappiness is to compete with other. There exists a paradox that we wish to be like our competitor but at the same time we get preoccupied with envy and start complaining about it. We can never be happy if we continue to feel envy. All bad things are connected with each other and any one of them can become the cause of other. So is complaining, if we complain all the time it creates an impression of a jealous, weak and insolent person who always complain and never thank for the blessings he possess. If we always chose complaining for our needs to be known, it will itself become our need and we will find our self helpless in any matter without it.

To me its a negative flash, problems are meant to be solved not complained. When we find ways for solving it instead of protesting, we can not only come over our problems but also discover our hidden abilities and strength. It’s not the time to complain, it’s the time to show the critics who complain about your weakness, what you can do. Its time to bring a positive change that can never be brought by worrying or showing dissatisfaction. It can only be brought by focusing on the things that can help you in achieving what you want.