<p>Here is the assignment:
Think carefully about the issue presented in the following excerpt and the assignment below.
People who like to think of themselves as tough-minded and realistic tend to take it for
granted that human nature is “selfish” and that life is a struggle in which only the fittest
may survive. According to this view, the basic law by which people must live is the law of the
jungle. The “fittest” are those people who can bring to the struggle superior force, superior
cunning, and superior ruthlessness.
Adapted from S.I. Hayakawa, Language in Thought and Action
Do people have to be highly competitive in order to succeed? Plan and write an essay in which
you develop your point of view on this issue. Support your position with reasoning and
examples taken from your reading, studies, experience, or observations.</p>
<p>And here comes my ESSAY:
Charles Darwin pointed out that “Survival for the fittest”, which means all living things have to be highly competitive so as to successfully survive. However, in my own perspective, being highly competitive is not the premise of success. Every individual embraces his or her uniqueness. Success comes only when we are the best of ourselves. Different people have different approaches to succeed, thus there is no need to surpass others in order to achieve our own goal. By being the personal best rather than exceeding others, Steve Jobs made his miracle and the girls in Little Women gained their own happiness.</p>
<p>The whole life of Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple company, was about how to improve and become a better self. Dropping from Reed College, Steve Jobs started his own business ignoring the fact that all his potential competitors were engrossed in classes and books at the moment. After the Apple company was founded, he put all emphasis on how to devise better product innovatively. He paid no attention to the commercial competition among Apple, IBM and Microsoft, since the unremitting innovation and improvement were his only pursuit. With Apple led the fashion of all innovative IT products, Steve Jobs gained the name “visionary” and earned his lifelong accomplishment.</p>
<p>What hampers us might be the competition with others. On the contrary, what fosters us is the realization of individuality and persistent in our own pursuit.</p>
<p>Four girls in Louis May Alcott’s Little Women shares four distinctive characters---May is womanly and elegant, Jo is boyish and independent, Beth is quiet and bashful, Amy is sprightly and romantic. Each of them has different life pursuits. Although frictions, envies and quarrels exist among the four, they still insist in their own ways without comparing with others. In the end, with the help and support from family and friends, they all embraces happy ending: May finds her true love John and bears two lovely children; Jo becomes a successful female writer and Amy realizes her artistic pursuit in France. For them, success always means to be the best version of themselves, not to compete and win over others.</p>
<p>Truly the fittest survives, but the most unique succeeds. Being highly competitive only means to be better than others, which cannot win over our own self-achievement. The true success long lives in the pursuit of self-understanding and self-realization.</p>