Hard work, Achievement, and Success

In the movie Tuesdays with Morrie, the values consuming Mitch's life are hard work, achievement, and success. He is always going from state to state, rushing to cover the latest sports news and rushing to meet every deadline. He wants his work to shout "perfection" and his values lead him to ignore everything else in his life. Not only is it true for my parents and myself, but I believe these three things are values our whole country finds important. Even if some people don't act on the hard work and achievement and never reach success, they like the idea of achieving something through hard work and may even envy those who have succeeded in something. I believe we learn to glorify hard work, achievement, and success at an early age. In Elementary school, we start learning to spell and eventually are given the choice of working our hardest and competing in the Spelling Bee. My teacher persuaded my whole class to do so. The winner of the Bee ended up receiving all kinds of medals and recognition for his success; he became the coolest kid in school. From then on, my classmates and I were programmed work hard to get what we want, whether it be receiving a reward, being recognized by others, or just having the ability to know we can succeed at something. This message has never gone away. The goal has just changed, though. It used to be the Spelling Bee, now it's getting into college, and later it will be landing a stable job in our field of work. There are a lot of different types of success, though; success doesn't always have to lead to a good, well-paying job. You can succeed in love, putting others before yourself, being kind to everyone, and being loyal to your family and/or significant other. You can succeed in understanding, knowing that different cultures have different values, being open-minded, and never judging others. Of course there are more, and sometimes they may overlap, but I believe school only teaches us how to succeed in graduating school. Sure, that's what their job is. However, these other things we can succeed in may give us the ability to achieve all we can achieve. For example, lack of success in love can lead to mistreatment of others and potentially ruin our success in school and success in getting a job because of that. Learning how to succeed in areas other than getting a job can help our society become a well-rounded, more understanding generation and lead us to more accomplishments.