Donating means you are selfish and selfless

Everyone sacrifices something. If you are a teenager, you sacrifice your time to go to school, if you're a parent, you make sacrifices for your children. The point is that everyone sacrifices something, if you don't think so, you're wrong because right now you're sacrificing time and energy to read this blog.

Sacrifices can be made for religious, personal, or even societal reasons. Many people do it to be brave and courageous, while others do it because it's the right thing to do. What I wonder, though, is if sacrificing makes people selfish. I believe it does and I believe it does the exact opposite, it can also make you self-less. It always depends on the situation. I believe that if a person is sacrificing something because they are trying to be brave or courageous, that they are doing it for selfish reasons. It's not necessarily a bad thing, but they are only doing it to make themselves feel better. For example, giving away your favorite outfit to charity is a brave thing (especially for girls), but since you're doing it to make yourself feel good, I'd categorize that as a selfish sacrifice. Even religious sacrifices I believe can be categorized as selfish. Those sacrifices are done in order to ensure a long and happy life and/or afterlife for the person making the sacrifice, hence, selfish. Giving something up or letting go of something for another person or for a greater cause I believe is a selfless sacrifice, as long as the person isn't doing it just to make themselves feel better. For example, if that same girl is giving away her outfit to charity because she knows it's a good thing to do, that's selfless and not selfish.

Sacrifices are both selfish and selfless, neither of which make it a good or bad thing to do. Everyone must make sacrifices because it's a part of life. Whether you're a baby, teenager, adult, or grandparent, we all make sacrifices to better our lives and the lives of others.

Question:What matters? Answer:Everything

"I see no reason to get up in the morning if I don't mean to matter." - Tom Peters

I do agree with this quote because if a person in going to get up in the morning and do nothing that matters to them or to anyone else, then what is the point? Nearly everything people do either matters to them or to someone else. Even if it is just going to the beach for the day to tan or running errands, it all matters. Going to the beach to tan might matter to you because you enjoy doing it and running errands might matter matter to a friend or family member because they are relying on you. Doing something that you have to do or just want to do always matters because every action has some sort of physical or emotional consequence to it, either good or bad. Tanning might cause you to feel good and relaxed or bad and burned, and running errands might make you tired and stressed, or happy that everything is done.

It is impossible to never do anything that matters to you or to anyone else. Even if you lie in bed all day and don't move, that is something that matters to yourself. Everything you do matters even if you don't realize it. The hard work you do in school will help you get into a good college and eventually into a good job, so even if you hate it, the work matters. The friendships and relationships you have matter, they give you lasting people to rely on and help you become the best person you can become. The stupid stuff you do matters, it helps you realize that it is stupid and helps you to not make mistakes again. So trust me, even if you don't think it matters, it does, everything matters.

The Nonexistent Free Will

Free will. This is something that I'd like to assume I have, but after reading Never Let Me Go, and critically thinking about free will in my own life, I have come to the conclusion that free will (unless you do not mind consequences such as jail) does not exist.

From birth, we are taught that we can do whatever we want to in life, and that we should follow our dreams because the world is our playground. After our existential unit, though, I do not believe that this is entirely true. I do believe that we can do what we want to in life, and that the world can be our playground, but the fact is that there are always consequences to our actions. We are all bound by the rules and laws of the government, our parents, and even our school. They all say what we can and cannot do and though they might not always be able to stop us, they scare us by threatening us with grounding, detention, suspension, or jail time.

It's true that I can do whatever I want, because my life is my life. The problem, is that if I do care about going to jail and the consequences of my actions, then I don't have free will. I can't just go steal jewelry from somebody's house or kill someone (not that I want to) because the law of the government forbids it. So when we really think about it, we don't have complete free will, that does not exist. I do have the free will to choose to be a good person, to follow my dreams and goals, and to choose other things in life like the right college, but 100% free will does not and will never exist.