Someone to be the Opposite of a Role Model

In the book "Breathing Underwater," by Alex Flin, the main character Nick attends an anger management class because he was an overprotective and violent boyfriend to Caitlin.  He didn't realize how bad he was until he saw what his friend Leo did to his girlfriend Neysa.  This makes me think that you not only need a role model, but also someone to learn from his/her mistakes.

In the beginning of the book, Nick had said, "It was just one slap.  I didn't hit her."  He didn't realize it was the same thing.  But when he spent time with Leo and Neysa, Leo criticized Neysa and even snapped things like, "No one asked for your opinion."  Nick had also done these things to Caitlin.  In the end, Leo shot Neysa and himself after she broke up with him.  Nick questioned if that would've happened to him if he hadn't been sent to the court mandated class.  Because of that, he decided to take the anger management class again, fully apologize to Caitlin, and change himself.  He was able to turn himself around by not doing what Leo did because he saw the possible outcomes of those actions.

Nick using Leo as the opposite of a role model isn't the first time I've seen or read about this being done.  Sometimes, when I see the affects of someone's actions, I make a mental note never to turn into that.  I think that everyone does this even in small ways.  Our parents tell us to do or not do certain things based on the outcome of the people who had tried it before.  However, just seeing someone do something wrong doesn't automatically mean that you will never do it.  For example, most people know how bad smoking is for you, but new smokers keep on coming.  However, I think that overall, many people need a role model and someone to model the wrong things for them.  I believe that you'd get a better understanding of why you should or shouldn't do certain things such as being an abusive person. Maybe it would keep people from making the wrong choices.

Who to Trust

In the book, The Lying Game, by Sara Shepard, Emma is a girl who is forced to  take the place of her dead long lost twin sister.  Originally, she had wanted to meet her sister and get to know her, but when she arrived, she received a note that said her sister Sutton was dead, and that if she didn't play along as Sutton, she'd be next.  After much investigating, she figured out that one of Sutton's closest friends was probably the killer.   This makes me think twice about trusting anyone completely.

The reason it makes me more tentative is because Sutton hadn't really ever thought her friends would kill her.  In the book, it said she trusted them with everything from secrets to her latest prank.  However, she was totally off guard when they tried to hurt her.  For example, the first time they intentionally tried to hurt her by choking her with her own necklace, Sutton had thought, "No one has ever gotten hurt before!"  Overall, she let her guard down when she decided to trust people.  I'm not saying that no one should be trusted, but we should be careful who you do.  Even if you think you know someone well, you can never be sure.  Sutton's best friends tried to hurt her after all.  This makes me think about stories I hear about someone marrying someone else just to get their money.  How many people have multiple personalities like these?

Everything Means Nothing If There Isn't Happiness

In the book "Nothing," by Janne Teller, Agnes' class searches for the meaning of everything after Pierre Anthon says that nothing has meaning.  While Pierre sat in a tree hollering at them, her class decided to make a pile of meaning.  Each person would demand something important from someone, such as their shoes, and then that person would demand something from the next person.  However, by the end, they had grave robbed someone's little brother, cut off a finger, killed a dog, and more.  Things just got more gruesome as they went along, and they were all unhappy with their losses.  However, they were only doing this to feel content with themselves that there was actually a meaning to life and the world in general.  I believe that they shouldn't have made themselves miserable.  I think that the true meaning of anything shouldn't be fought over if nobody is happy.  To me enjoying what you have is the most important thing in life.

I think that happiness is more important than stressing over the meaning of everything because of what it led the kids in Agnes' class to do.  Almost every person cried or was miserable after they had to give up something.  For example, Ann Li cried when she had to give up her pet hamster, who ended up dying.  Holy Karl had to go against his religion and steal the statue of Jesus from the Church.  In the end, his parents said he wasn't a good Christian, and the book described him as one who appeared to have lost everything.  Unfortunately, after months os sacrifice and suffering, Pierre said the pile was a bunch of junk!  In fact, they were even going to sell the pile to a museum.  I think that all of those months could have been used for the class to enjoy their childhood.  Instead they saw and did things that were unnecessary and led them to no success.  In conclusion, I think that happiness and enjoying life is way too important to waste.  It is also something you can't put a price on, like they did for their pile.  I just didn't understand why they put so much tears into something that could probably never be answered.  This draws me to the conclusion that happiness is the true meaning of life, and overcomes everything else.