Weighty Decisions

          This past week, I have come to realize that doing the politically smart thing is a lot easier than doing the ultimately and strategically smarter thing. I have recently learned more in depth about two specific instances in our nation’s history, one much more modern that the other. Both of these instances involved a decision that the president had to make, critical to out nation’s future. In one instance, the president did the politically smart thing. In another, the president made the strategically smart decision.

       One of the events I learned about was when President Abraham Lincoln made the decision to suspend the writ of habeas corpus. He did this during the civil war in order to prevent southern sympathizers from hurting the Union’s effort in the war. He knew that with a stronger Union, the chances of them winning the civil war would be a lot greater. On the other hand, this decision was not politically smart because it upset a lot of people, especially the southern sympathizers. At the time, Lincoln was on of the most hated presidents to date. However, because he made the strategically, and ultimately smart decision at the time, he enabled the Union to win the war, and therefore, is one of the most well respected presidents in American history.

       On the other hand, making the politically smart decision doesn’t always make someone a well-respected leader in the long run. I learned about George Bush’s legacy in terms of how he handled our nation’s debt and economy, and found that he was much more interested in pleasing the people than making our nation stronger and handling our nation’s debt the proper way. Instead of trying to pay off the debt, he decided to give numerous tax breaks to the people of our nation, and signed bill after bill regarding saving people money, especially in social security and health care. At the time, many people were incredibly excited about these decisions because it was saving them money. However, when it came to the time of current President Obama’s election, our nation was in a serious economic recession, and our nation’s debt was at its highest since World War II. Looking back now, George Bush’s presidency is not one most people look back on in a positive light.

       Based on the decisions of these two presidents, I have come to the conclusion that our nation puts a lot of pressure on our presidents for short term fixes, we don’t have as much concern for long term decisions and their effects. This puts a lot of pressure on our nation’s presidents to make the politically smart decisions, which tend to not work out as well in the long run, instead of making the smarter decision for our nation’s future as a whole. So now I wonder: Is the sign of a true leader someone that can set aside all of the pressure put on them for short term results, and make their decisions based entirely on the long term goals of his or her nation? Is that what makes a strong leader?

AP: Synonymous to Advanced Pride

            I have come to the conclusion that it is our nature as people to show off. We believe that we need to prove ourselves to be above average. This quality is especially prominent in the New Trier. We have to prove that we are bigger, stronger, faster, smarter, and better than one another. In the academic world at New Trier, our success and strength as students is determined based on two letters that do or do not appear in front of the title of your classes. Those letters are A and P.

            I believe that New Trier is a highly concentrated version of our success-oriented society. Almost everyone feels the need to prove their success. So what better place to conduct a survey with high school students than at New Trier? In my survey, I asked one simple question: What classes are you taking this year? Once the person responded with AP in the title of one of their classes I stopped them, thanked them, and asked the same question to another person. If someone did not respond with any AP’s in their answer, I asked them if they were in any AP’s. The answer every time was no. Likewise, not one person in an AP class neglected to leave that detail out.

            So now I wonder, why is it that we feel the need to distinguish our classes as AP? Why not just say we are in Calculus instead of AP Calculus BC? I truly believe that this is because we all think we need to prove how smart we are. We think that if we can say that we are in an AP class, that people will suddenly think that we are geniuses or something. But that’s just my own hypothesis. Everybody has different motivations and reasons. However, do we all just have this deep desire to constantly prove our intelligence? What is the reason behind all of this AP nonsense?

21st Century Social Classes

            Although our society today is supposedly a classless society, we still find a pecking order in every social interaction. The wealthy and highly talented are given special treatment and the average and sub-par people are pushed to the bottom of the list. I myself have experienced both such extremes.

            I am a competitive tennis player and I travel across the Midwest and to many different destinations all over the country throughout the year. With all of the competition comes a lot of practice, and this being my junior year, I realized I was going to need a little extra. But with my rigorous academic load, I knew I couldn’t cut out study time. So instead I decided to try to get exempted from gym. However, I came to learn that this is a very rare occurrence that people get exempted for the entire year for one sport. I have found myself at the top of the athletic chain at New Trier. I have been given special treatment that most other people don’t get due to the amount of talent I have. I hope I don’t sound arrogant when I say this because the truth is it has taken an immense amount of hard work to get where I have gotten. However, at the same time, I am put on the opposite end of the spectrum in the tennis world.

            I play for the varsity tennis team. I played for them my freshman year and played state. I didn’t play last year due to an injury but when I came back to play this year, I felt that I was treated as if I was lesser than others of my same playing ability. I was in many ways disrespected because I had taken myself out of this status I had earned for myself my freshman year. I had to prove my spot once again just like I had as a freshman. Except this time, I was a junior. I had to climb to the top once again with little aid. I watched other girls of equal and lesser playing ability get special treatment just because of the history they have with the team. It’s a frustrating thing I deal with every day. I think to myself,  “They are no better than me. Why are they given special treatment? Why don’t they have to come to practice every day? Why do they get to just choose their position in the lineup while I have to earn my spot time and time again?” At the end of the day, I am going to state just like them. There are only three girls on the entire team that I believe could have a prayer of beating me, and there’s still no guarantee. So why am I treated as if I am at the bottom of the lineup. I have dealt with our coach laughing in my face and then berating me for telling her one small dissatisfaction with the team, while she turns around and lets other girls on the team completely manipulate her. Is it fair? I don’t believe so. Is it reality? Unfortunately it is and I just have to battle through it.

            Then I take a step back and realize that this is the kind of crap that many Americans deal with every day. They are pushed to the bottom of the food chain and forced to fight an uphill battle. It’s not fair. But it’s a reality in American society. We have to prove our positions over and over again in order to get any kind of reward or treatment. Unfortunately, most of us will never win this battle. But we can at least give it a good fight.

Apple-ution

This morning, I woke up to my alarm, checked the weather on my weather app, checked my email and facebook on my computer, ate breakfast, plugged my iPod into my ears and turned on my music before I went for a walk. Now besides eating breakfast, all of my activities that I did this morning involved an Apple product. In our society today, a majority of activities done by people, no matter how simple or complicated, are completed with some type of Apple technology. With the passing of Steve Jobs, our world is now wondering, is our world at a standstill in the technology world, or is someone going to step up and continue to revolutionize?

 In my opinion, Steve Jobs made some of the most versatile products, the iPad in particular. Never have we been able to do so many things with a single device. From writing a paper to checking emails to simply just playing a game, the the iPad has provided us with a unique opportunity to do things in one convenient location. With this innovation of technology, as well as countless others, Steve Jobs has revolutionized the world.

Our world is now a changed place. We are more productive and innovative than ever. Apple products are used to do just about anything. If Jobs had been able to continue his career, I wouldn't of been surprised if Apple had come out with a ridiculous product like the iToilet...

With Steve Jobs around, I believe that anything in the technology world was possible. But now that he's gone, the question remains, what now? Is our world going to remain this way, or will somebody else step up? The answer, I believe, is somewhere in the near future...

The Value of the Best

          After discussing a classmate’s blog today about the American value of winning and being the best, I began to ponder that idea and really wonder. What do people really think about being the best? So I took an anonymous survey of 20 people I know. I asked them if they would rather work really hard at something and get a bad result from it, or would they rather not work hard at something but get a good result. For instance, would they prefer to work really hard in a class and learn a lot but get a C or would they prefer giving minimal effort and get an A? At the end of the survey, I tallied the results and counted 17 students preferred to get the A with minimal effort, only 3 preferred working hard and not always getting a positive outcome.

          After that survey, I was able to come to the conclusion that based on those results, we as humans prefer the more positive outcome. However, how could I saw that this view was truly American? I had taken views of only American people. To solidify my conclusion, I needed an outside opinion. So I asked my tennis coach, who happened to be born and raised in Israel. I asked him the same question, phrased it the same way, and the response I got supported my claim that the desire to be number one is an American point of view. My coach then went into specifics, telling me that in Europe in general, there is a stronger desire to work hard and perhaps end up succeeding. For instance, he said that a lot more tennis players in Europe go pro, even if they don’t know if they will be able to make it into the top 10 in the world. However, in America, much fewer player turn pro, and the ones that do only turn pro because they have experts telling them they will succeed. After hearing him talk about that I was certain that the value of being the best was completely American.

          Now I know that after asking a few people a simple question can’t validate a cultural view as only American, however I do know that it does create a stronger claim that this view is more American. Although I cannot say with absolute certainty that the desire to be the best is completely American and no other country, I can say that it most definitely is not a view of all humans. There is definitely a societal impact, and I can say with the utmost confidence that American society has engrained this belief right into the stitches of our identities.