Logan Dimond
Ms. Lehmann
English 1-3
3 December 2019
Selflessness and Survival
Do you think that survival is selfish? This is the central question of this essay. I think that survival doesn’t have to be a selfish action. I think this because caring for others gives people a purpose. People survive because they keep a cool head, not because they are selfish. Many stories have evidence of survivors helping others, and feeling a sense of purpose, that have helped them to survive.
Caring for other victims in a crisis helps you feel like you have a purpose. Having a purpose is the key to survival. People that care for others instead of themselves have a better chance of survival. In Deep Survival, Gonzales explains, “Doctors and nurses often survive better than others because they have someone to help” (Gonzales 332). This shows how selfishness isn’t the key to surviving. This shows that helping and focusing on others helps not only the person receiving help, but also the one providing help. Another piece of evidence can be found in the same artice. Focusing on others has been shown to greatly affect your odds of survival. Some evidence of this is, “Helping someone else is the best way to ensure your own survival. It takes you out of yourself. It helps you to rise above your fears. Now you are a rescuer, not a victim. And seeing how your leadership and skill buoy others up gives you more focus and energy to persevere” (Gonzales 331). This shows that you must overcome selfishness and focus more on others to give yourself a better shot at surviving a deadly situation.
People often survive deadly events not because they are selfish, but because they can keep a cool head. It has been proven that the ones who are mentally prepared and can remain calm survive more often in tough situations. One way to remain calm in dire circumstances is to focus on helping others and not yourself. Gonzales explains that, “Apathy is a typical reaction to any sort of disaster... That apathy can rapidly lead to complete psychological deterioration” (Gonzales 330). Having apathy for yourself is what gets most people in a survival situation killed. To avoid this mental collapse, you must focus on helping others. Having a good attitude is the most important thing to have in order to be a survivor. The survival teacher named Kerns was teaching a group of pupils while in the forest. He told his students, “’It’s not what is in your pack,’ he’d say. ‘It’s what’s in here.’ He’d tap his chest” (Gonzales 330). Avoiding having apathy for yourself is something you must do in a survival situation. The easiest and most effective way is to focus on others and boost them up.
Although it’s clear that survival shouldn’t be selfish, others might argue that apathy will kill you faster than anything, so you should be selfish and only care about yourself. This claim is not true because it has been proven repeatedly that saving others has a great influence on your chances of surviving. There is some truth to apathy killing you the fastest. Apathy is a selfish emotion, and it will kill any survivor that possess large amounts of it. A piece of evidence that shows that selfishness is the wrong move to make is Kerns. He was a man who was leading a group of pilots in the wilderness, and he pushed them too hard. They became selfish and began to have apathy for themselves. They had to overcome this selfishness in order to survive. “All at once, it hit me that I might actually lose them. Those million-dollar pilots could die” (Gonzales 331). Helping others only increases your own chance of survival and helping others is a great way to overcome apathy. Ultimately, the evidence strongly shows that survival shouldn’t be selfish.
Altogether, selfishness is not a characteristic of survival. Being selfless, helping others, and keeping a cool head are the key elements to surviving a difficult situation. I think that lifting others up gives you a purpose to survive. It also helps you overcome selfish emotions, such as fear and apathy. I also think that having a positive mental attitude and staying levelheaded are some of the best things you can do to help yourself, and others, stay alive. Helping others increases your odds of survival; it does not diminish it. This all begs the question, why save yourself over the others? Are you any more important than anyone else?
Works Cited
Gonzales, Laurence. Deep Survival, Collections, Edited by Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William L. McBride,
Erik Palmer, and Lydia Stack, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017 pp. 325-334.
Argumentative Essay Reflection
Please answer all questions in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
1. Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
At first, as a class, we read four articles about survival and selfishness. We recorded notes about each article. We then had a class discussion about our topic. We then chose our side and found key points to our arguments. Using the outline given to me, I put together the essay.
2. What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them?
This essay contains a vital outline to be argumentative. It argues that survival shouldn't be a selfish act. It contains key points, and a rebuttal to state why selfishness is wrong. It has a thesis and a conclusion.
3. Explain how you found at least one of the quotations from the essay and tell me why you chose that particular quote. What did it do for your paper?
I used the quote, "Apathy is a typical reaction to any sort of disaster... That apathy can rapidly lead to complete psychological deterioration” (Gonzales 330). I used this quote as evidence to show that being selfish and felling sorry for yourself will kill you faster than when you focus on others. This evidence helped to prove my point, and it gave an opinion from someone else's writing that backed up my claim.
Ms. Lehmann
English 1-3
3 December 2019
Selflessness and Survival
Do you think that survival is selfish? This is the central question of this essay. I think that survival doesn’t have to be a selfish action. I think this because caring for others gives people a purpose. People survive because they keep a cool head, not because they are selfish. Many stories have evidence of survivors helping others, and feeling a sense of purpose, that have helped them to survive.
Caring for other victims in a crisis helps you feel like you have a purpose. Having a purpose is the key to survival. People that care for others instead of themselves have a better chance of survival. In Deep Survival, Gonzales explains, “Doctors and nurses often survive better than others because they have someone to help” (Gonzales 332). This shows how selfishness isn’t the key to surviving. This shows that helping and focusing on others helps not only the person receiving help, but also the one providing help. Another piece of evidence can be found in the same artice. Focusing on others has been shown to greatly affect your odds of survival. Some evidence of this is, “Helping someone else is the best way to ensure your own survival. It takes you out of yourself. It helps you to rise above your fears. Now you are a rescuer, not a victim. And seeing how your leadership and skill buoy others up gives you more focus and energy to persevere” (Gonzales 331). This shows that you must overcome selfishness and focus more on others to give yourself a better shot at surviving a deadly situation.
People often survive deadly events not because they are selfish, but because they can keep a cool head. It has been proven that the ones who are mentally prepared and can remain calm survive more often in tough situations. One way to remain calm in dire circumstances is to focus on helping others and not yourself. Gonzales explains that, “Apathy is a typical reaction to any sort of disaster... That apathy can rapidly lead to complete psychological deterioration” (Gonzales 330). Having apathy for yourself is what gets most people in a survival situation killed. To avoid this mental collapse, you must focus on helping others. Having a good attitude is the most important thing to have in order to be a survivor. The survival teacher named Kerns was teaching a group of pupils while in the forest. He told his students, “’It’s not what is in your pack,’ he’d say. ‘It’s what’s in here.’ He’d tap his chest” (Gonzales 330). Avoiding having apathy for yourself is something you must do in a survival situation. The easiest and most effective way is to focus on others and boost them up.
Although it’s clear that survival shouldn’t be selfish, others might argue that apathy will kill you faster than anything, so you should be selfish and only care about yourself. This claim is not true because it has been proven repeatedly that saving others has a great influence on your chances of surviving. There is some truth to apathy killing you the fastest. Apathy is a selfish emotion, and it will kill any survivor that possess large amounts of it. A piece of evidence that shows that selfishness is the wrong move to make is Kerns. He was a man who was leading a group of pilots in the wilderness, and he pushed them too hard. They became selfish and began to have apathy for themselves. They had to overcome this selfishness in order to survive. “All at once, it hit me that I might actually lose them. Those million-dollar pilots could die” (Gonzales 331). Helping others only increases your own chance of survival and helping others is a great way to overcome apathy. Ultimately, the evidence strongly shows that survival shouldn’t be selfish.
Altogether, selfishness is not a characteristic of survival. Being selfless, helping others, and keeping a cool head are the key elements to surviving a difficult situation. I think that lifting others up gives you a purpose to survive. It also helps you overcome selfish emotions, such as fear and apathy. I also think that having a positive mental attitude and staying levelheaded are some of the best things you can do to help yourself, and others, stay alive. Helping others increases your odds of survival; it does not diminish it. This all begs the question, why save yourself over the others? Are you any more important than anyone else?
Works Cited
Gonzales, Laurence. Deep Survival, Collections, Edited by Kylene Beers, Martha Hougen, Carol Jago, William L. McBride,
Erik Palmer, and Lydia Stack, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017 pp. 325-334.
Argumentative Essay Reflection
Please answer all questions in complete, grammatically correct sentences.
1. Explain the process you went through to write this paper. Please be specific.
At first, as a class, we read four articles about survival and selfishness. We recorded notes about each article. We then had a class discussion about our topic. We then chose our side and found key points to our arguments. Using the outline given to me, I put together the essay.
2. What qualifies this paper as an argumentative essay? What are the requirements for this genre and how did you meet them?
This essay contains a vital outline to be argumentative. It argues that survival shouldn't be a selfish act. It contains key points, and a rebuttal to state why selfishness is wrong. It has a thesis and a conclusion.
3. Explain how you found at least one of the quotations from the essay and tell me why you chose that particular quote. What did it do for your paper?
I used the quote, "Apathy is a typical reaction to any sort of disaster... That apathy can rapidly lead to complete psychological deterioration” (Gonzales 330). I used this quote as evidence to show that being selfish and felling sorry for yourself will kill you faster than when you focus on others. This evidence helped to prove my point, and it gave an opinion from someone else's writing that backed up my claim.