I Wish Some Had Told Me…

Most of the advice I’ve been given during my seventeen years has been all but completely forgotten. The morals I live by usually correspond to past experiences, how I reacted to them, and the lessons that I learned from them. To be honest, I haven’t really had a wide variety of what would be considered wise things said to me. Maybe it’s because I’m still so young. But the one piece of advice that I am sure will stick with me for the rest of my life was something my mother told me. I was under a lot of stress from school, among other things, and when she realized this she simply said, “Do what you have to do - it’ll all turn out somehow.” At first it seemed to me to be such an obvious and simple statement. But the more I think about it, the more meaning it has. When something is important to me, I just have to do what I can to make something happen. But I also have to remember that no matter what I do, there will always be an end result; it’ll turn it somehow. Knowing that there will eventually be an end to certain challenges is comforting. Even if the result ends up being slightly undesirable, I have to put it behind me and just keep on trucking.

At the beginning of my junior year I attempted to expand my horizons a bit. I decided to take an Honors Pre-Calculus course even though I took Level One math for the previous two years and my sophomore year teacher recommended me for Level One. I thought, “Hey, if I just put a decent amount of work into it, chances are I’ll do just fine.” Oh boy was I wrong. From the get-go I started falling behind. The vast majority of my fellow students were completely adjusted to fast-paced mathematics from their previous year, and even some of them had trouble with the completely foreign math known as Trigonometry that was being introduced to us. This was a form of abstract math that was completely unknown to me and I quickly realized that I chose the wrong year to move up a level. I was just barely passing when I thought of what my mother told me: “Do what you have to do - it’ll all turn out somehow.” What I had to do was drop back down to Level One. I recognized that I overestimated myself, and I couldn’t drag that flaw throughout the entire year. Even though it would feel like defeat, what I was really doing was saving myself. The week that I strolled into Level One was the week that I started getting A’s and I enjoyed the subject infinitely more (OK, maybe not infinitely more, but a value approaching infinity). I liked the friends I had in the class and I thought Mr. Barretta was a cool a teacher, but my net sum of happiness was going to be greater at an easier level. I did what I had to do. Maybe it wasn’t an optimal outcome, but it was an outcome nonetheless, and I was happy about it.

Utnapishtim Replies

Utnapishtim is telling Gilgamesh that he has to accept the fact that he is a mortal and is bound to die eventually. Everywhere we look – books, poems, plays, movies, etc. – death is a prominent theme. It seems as if everywhere we look death is mentioned, even though the majority of people look at it as one of the worst aspects of life. Even in Gilgamesh, he takes so many risks just for a quest to gain immortality. Only after he does not succeed in this mission does he realize that even though he will die, people will always remember him. After all, we’re still talking about him thousands of years after he was around. People remember Gilgamesh and people like him, fictional or not, because he was a significant influence during his life. He made the best out of the years he had on Earth. The reason people get up and go about their business is because they know their time is limited; they should make the best out of what they have. In fact, I believe that if people were immortal, they would be less likely to make the best out of the time they have. People would put things off because they knew they had and eternity to get what they want, and eternity is a long time. Humans create a sense of order and eternal life by making an impact on others while they are alive. Even though William Shakespeare is long gone, his works will be remembered forever. For the rest of our history, the names Romeo and Juliet will always have remarkable significance. Isaac Newton may have constructed his theories concerning the physics of celestial bodies hundreds of years ago, but they are prominent in modern physics and will always be known for revolutionizing our view of the cosmos. Human beings eventually die, but every positive impact they made in the time they spent on Earth will live forever.