Real or Fake?

     In the book What Happened to Goodbye, by Sarah Dessen, Mclean has always been a girl who says she likes change.  After her parents got divorced and she went to live with her dad and ended up moving four times in two years!  And each time, she would create a new nickname and personality for herself.  It was only when she just recently moved and wasn't able to make a nickname that she realized she had to start living her life as herself, but found it to be very difficult.  This makes me think about being real or fake and how it affects your life.

     As I said, Mclean had always changed who she was when she moved to a new place.  For example, last time, she named herself Beth and decided to be that kind of person that everyone knew.  She joined every club, became friends with the popular cheerleaders and jocks, and appeared in almost every page of the yearbook.  She said that by changing herself, there was no confusion in her life and it was just easier for her to create a life for herself.  But in this new place she moved to, she didn't get a chance to figure out who she was going to be and found it very difficult.  For example, she didn't know who she'd be friends with, such as the jocks or the geeks.  Instead, friends found her by inviting her to sit with her or being the boy next door.  She also met Dave who introduced her to being herself and taking all of her life's problems in (such as how her mother divorced her dad to marry one of her idols) instead of creating a fresh start as if the past had never happened.  Mclean faced a lot of confusion from her feelings about Dave to telling her mother how she really felt.  And in the end, she realized it was okay, as she put it, "to have the world moving beneath me, a hand gripping mine, knowing if I fell, at least I wouldn't do it alone."  Overall, this makes me think that although it was harder for Mclean to live a "real" life, that doing so is better than putting on a fake smile and saying words you might never have wanted to say.  This is because life is supposed to be hard.  And sometimes, the best part of it is letting the world take its course and finding yourself.  Although being fake might be easier, as exemplified by Mclean, it may make you feel alone because no one knows the real you.  Just be yourself and if you fall, at least you might not do it alone.

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.

Being a Leader Isn't Always so Great

I used to think that there was one definition of the word leader.  This definition was that a leader is someone everyone looks up to, and who usually makes the right decisions.  However, characters from the book I just finished, The Mark of Athena, by Rick Riordan helped me realize that being a leader can be really hard.  It's not always easy to make the right decisions, and it can affect the person negatively on the inside.

In the book. I learned that with leadership, the leader must be willing to sacrifice things for the better good.  For example, one of the main characters named Frank told his friend Leo that Leo would rather save machines than people.  At first, Leo shrugged this off, but when his friends were in danger, he had to choose between the machines or them.  He decided to be a true leader and friend and risked the technology and in the meantime, realized what it takes to be a leader.  Piper was another main character who had to sacrifice something to save the majority.  In this case, she sacrificed herself.  Although she didn't die, she was willing to give up everything to save her drowning friends.  This shows that leaders have the tough job of having to make the right decision, and that can be as hard as sacrificing things on order to help the majority.

Besides the fact that leaders in the book were physically wounded in battle, they were also hurt internally.  For example, both Percy and Jason have always been leaders their entire life.  Everyone just expects them to do something phenomenal.  However, this just makes them feel bad when they don't meet everyone's expectations.  It also sets a pressure on them that sometimes makes them go crazy.  I also hate to bring out the bad qualities of them, but being a leader can also make them stuck up.  Everyone thinks they're so great, and so they start to believe it and think they are invincible.  Although they are pretty wonderful people, pride can sometimes be harmful.  For example, Jason had said, "I've always been the leader.  Being with equals on this quest makes me feel like I'm failing."  This shows that their pride and feelings can be hurt because they thought they were the best, and it's hard to take when there is more than one leader.  Overall, there can be negative affects to being a leader.

In conclusion, this book has helped me see so many sides of being a leader.  The characters in this story were shaped to realize what being a leader really means.  Usually in stories, people praise the leader and don't stop to think about what this is actually doing to them.  This makes me think about people in reality today.  I think it's good to have someone in charge, but maybe everyone should be given a chance so nobody is alone when it comes to sacrifice and internal pain from trying to be the best leader ever.