Greatest Accomplishment

“What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.”

There are many levels of accomplishments that I would hope to achieve during my lifetime, whether it be something in the short term such as somehow passing my biology class, or long term such as getting into a good college that leads to an interesting job that involves something other than sitting in a cubicle all day. However, as for the greatest accomplishment I could imagine, it would have to be something that involved helping mass amounts of people. This could be something like the stereotypical greatest goal of ending world hunger, or finding an easy cure to cancer, or all diseases for that matter. Morally, I don't think that there would be much I wouldn't be willing to do to achieve something like that. If the end result helped more than whatever I did that crossed a moral or legal boundary, then I would be willing to do it. Although there aren't many examples that I could think of involving morality for the cancer cure example, if it was something like having access to someone else's research only I couldn't have their approval, I would probably do it since it the end it would save tons of people. As for legally, I would not be as likely to break the law. For example, if the cure involved using illegal or dangerous materials, then I would probably stay as far away from that as possible. Basically, I think that as long as the end result made up for the measures that it took to get there by a decent amount, it would be worth it.

Life's Greatest Accomplishment

Life is composed of a wide range of epochs all interconnected. At each time one has a different attitude, mindset and opinion regarding their decisions. While some may argue fate yields all accomplishments and decisions inconsequential, I would imagine at this point everyone has some sort of idea of their goals. 30 years from now I hope to be successful. I hope to make a change in the world for the better. Whether in medicine, education, or law I hope to have my work influence a wide variety of people. The greatest accomplishment, at least in my eyes, is one that aids others in reach their accomplishments. From being a teacher and showing someone their true potential to a doctor saving someone with an ailment I hope to be in a career that allows me to do something meaningful.

While everyone hopes to impact the world morally, everyone also hopes to have the same comforts of life they were endowed with as children. When I am an adult I hope to be able to provide for my family everything I have been given. I hope to have a home and enough money to be able to allot my children to do what every they may please.

Unlike Macbeth and Lady Macbeth, I would not be willing to cross moral and legal boundaries to reach my goals in life. By trying to be successful, I would not want to impede the progress of other people. I believe that half of success is the pride one has from earning something. By trying to reach a goal by doing something illegal, I would know that I did not deserve what I have. This guilt would fuel a dissatisfaction in my possessions and lead to further criminal activity.

Contrary to the blog posts of others I do not believe that happiness is the indicator for success. While looking up the meaning of the word happiness, I come across a pertinent article on LifeHacker. The article told of Harvard psychologist, Shawn Ancor. He spent more then 10 years in Cambridge, Massachusetts researching happiness and success. He concluded that happiness does not arise from success and is not a symptom of it. He concluded that "When we are positive, our brains become more engaged, creative, motivated, energetic, resilient, and productive at work". He implied that when we are happy we can foster success. 

Happiness Article: http://lifehacker.com/happiness-isn-t-the-outcome-of-success-it-s-the-fuel-1653915516

“What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.”

I think my greatest accomplishment would be to have an impact on a social issue in the world today. Whether I help fight ableism, racism, sexism, homophobia, sickness, poverty etc., I think that is truly the greatest accomplish I could achieve. This is going to sound really cheesy, but I think we all have some sort of power for change. No matter how small, we can change something. I hope in life I will be able to use that power for change for a great purpose. 

As for boundaries, I wouldn't cross drastic moral and legal boundaries (i.e murder, cheating,). It wouldn't be needed to make any sort of change. If I were to commit murder or cheat in order to achieve my goal, I'm not really achieving my goal. I would be causing more harm than good, which goes against my original accomplishment. Although, people in the past have disobeyed the law to start a movement, like Rosa Parks and the bus boycott, so I think I might cross some legal boundaries if they weren't harmful.     

Greatest Achievement Response

What is the greatest accomplishment you could ever achieve in life? What lengths would you go to in order to achieve this accomplishment? Consider the moral and legal boundaries you would or would not cross.

For me, the greatest achievement I can think of would be helping others as much as possible. I find it very hard to live in a world with such corruption and suffering and I want to do as much as I can to ease it. Depending on what kind of lengths, I think I would go pretty far to make the world a better place, including environmental issues and racism and such. Basically, I want to make the world as perfect as possible. I have seen many responses about how being happy with yourself is considered the greatest achievement, but I can't be happy while I see others who aren't. I believe I would find my happiness in helping others and therefore I could basically get two birds with one stone. Any legal or moral boundaries I could cross would probably end up hurting someone and whatever boundaries I'd cross would have to depend on who was affected in what way. 

For Old Mac, The Farm Wasn't Enough

Honestly, after finishing Macbeth, I am overwhelmingly puzzled by the play, its plot, characters, and supposedly flowery Elizabethan language (I can barely comprehend it, much less truly appreciate it).  I am not really sure what kinds of messages Shakespeare was trying to convey.                                                                             

Although I am not particularly well acquainted with the form of classic Greek tragedies, it's possible to draw a few parallels, such as the use of three fates, the idea of of bad things happening to good people, and that favorite humanist theme of a man a the height of power losing it all.  Shakespeare uses the porter, and later the dialogue between Lady Macduff and her son as comic relief, but I didn't find his ribald sense of humor particularly comedic.                                                

Macbeth starts out as a potentially heroic protagonist, but his character quickly shifts into that of a heinous villain.  This occurs after he meets three cotton tops on the side of the road who think they know something about his future.  For a thane of Scotland, Macbeth is pretty gullible.  Just because they tell him that he will be king, he decides that makes it okay to massacre his fellow countrymen, including assassinating the king, who was doing a perfectly fine job of ruling Scotland, and his best friend, Banquo.  Macbeth doesn't stop to consider for one moment that those pruny old ladies could have no idea what they are talking about.  He also automatically assumes that he has to murder everyone he comes in contact with in order to fulfill their prophecy.             

Lady Macbeth, on the other hand, contrasts the cultural and historical roles of women in her character.  In order not to hurt her feelings, let's start by complimenting her leadership skills.  While most women in medieval Scotland stayed home and cared for children, with little to no influence on their husbands’ actions, Lady Macbeth rules the roost.  She adroitly manipulates Macbeth into doing what she wants him to do, whether or not he has any qualms about it.  She is also an unconventional woman because she defies the status quo of women's traditional roles.  Lady Macbeth is ambitious and realizes that there's more to life for a woman than having children, like orchestrating assassinations and plotting ways to obtain power (of course).  She is so steadfastly loyal that she would rather smash out a baby's brains than break her word.  Most people can't claim to have a modicum of her dedication.  However, she's stuck playing the traditional role of woman as temptress, which is pretty stereotypical.  (I mean, we've seen this since Adam and Eve.  Everyone knows that women are the root of all evil in the world.  That's just so obvious.  Why else would we have war, plagues, and death?)                                   

Macbeth does have some redeeming qualities, though.  All of the important characters die in the end, which is perversely amusing.  I was at least able to understand that much of this inscrutable play.

Life and Wu

The greatest achievement in life is to live morally and in balance. To live by your own code of morals, so long as it isn’t at the expense of others, no matter who is or isn’t watching until death is the greatest feat a human can accomplish. Following these rules does not always lead to happiness, but rather satisfaction or peace with oneself. It is simply not possible for a human to follow these morals since birth to death, so to accept that there is no way to reach this perfect balance, is the key. In essence, to come to peace with yourself is the most difficult as well as most venerable achievement in life. Accepting all of your flaws and realizing that not only is perfection non-existent in humanity, but also unobtainable, should be considered the highest tier of human achievement. Like the Zen masters say, the result of years of meditation is Wu, or nothingness. The Zen Koans exemplify that life’s peak comes from when one accepts they cannot comprehend life.

Greatest Accomplishment

I believe that the greatest accomplishment that I could achieve in life is being comfortable being myself, as well as what everyone else was saying, which is happiness.  I think that being comfortable and proud of who you are, is the greatest achievement that you could ever gain in life. This is because, if you are proud of who you are, then you will be happy, and good things happen to those who are optimistic. I’m not saying that all good things happen to all good and happy people, that’s not true; a lot of horrible things happen to very good people. But, if you are happy, then you will realize that this one bad event should not define you or your life. I think that if you are proud of who you are, this leads to a chain reaction of positive things, which leads to a good life, and the only thing that you are really going to care about when you are on your deathbed is not whether of not you won that trophy in sixth grade, but whether or not you are proud of who you were and what you did with your life. Because this accomplishment is all based off of you, there would not be many ‘great lengths’ that you would have to go to, in order to achieve this accomplishment. However, if someone told you that if you cheated on this one test, you would get in to college and be happy and have a lot of money; I would not do it. This is because in the end, you  would not be happy because your whole life would be based off a lie and you could never be proud of who you are/were. Lastly, I would not cross any moral boundaries to achieve this. This is because, if you don’t stay true to your moral boundaries, then you will never accomplish this goal/achievement in the long run. It isn’t about short term happiness or short term acceptance of yourself, it’s about being happy and proud of yourself overall.