Since I was a little kid, I have been taught the age-old adage that the best things in life are free. Over the years, commercials like MasterCard showed how great memories are priceless, but even they say at the end that people need credit cards for all of the objects, which eventually create the memories. Trust me; I know the truth. The best things in life are definitely not free.
Vacations and trips are events in a person’s life, including mine, that are entertaining and great bonding experiences for friends and families. As much fun as trips are, they are definitely not friends of a person’s wallet. Most nice trips are nice for a reason; they cost some serious cash. I know if I were planning a trip over to Europe, I wouldn’t really want to swim and hitchhike there, and this makes planes useful. The airline industry is not cheap either. Planning months and months in advance doesn’t even matter that much any more because the prices are still eye-popping and mind-boggling. Even if a group of people gathers up money to go to Vegas or London, they are punched in the face with the reality of spending money for transportation, hotels, restaurants, entertainment, and the ever-popular souvenirs. Then those people spend all of their money and have to kiss the chance of going on trips in the near future goodbye.
I have only gone on one major trip in the last eight years. Big trips have become a hassle. Everyone wants to charge a bundle, and it has gotten to a point where spending that much money is a waste. I have made my peace with the fact that it is idiotic to spend close to five hundred dollars for a flight to South Carolina, especially if I’m going on a short trip. As far as hotels go, I won’t even get started on how ridiculous it is to charge customers so much for spending a couple nights. Don’t get me wrong, I love to take time out and escape from life with a great vacation, but vacations can make money escape from my life.
College is said by many people to be the best time of a young person’s life. It is for meeting new people and getting a jump start on the future. There is so much to do at a university, and there are endless opportunities that a degree in higher education can give an individual, but there is only one little problem. Colleges are about as cheap as a brand new Ferrari, and that is before looking at the cost of room and board, books, and food. Universities like the University of Pittsburgh and Penn State like to charge close to $20,000 a year, and if that isn’t back-straining enough, it will hurt more to find out that the $20,000 is just on tuition alone. What about Carnegie Mellon? This university thinks it is fair enough to charge over $35,000 a year on tuition. Say goodbye to those family vacations for the next four to eight years. The one last saving resort could be scholarships, but those are very rare because colleges like Pitt and Carnegie Mellon do not give many scholarships. If someone wants to receive a great education for the future, that person has to break out a fairly large piggy bank.
I am an aspiring student, and I’ve looked at several colleges, but there is a large knot that forms in my stomach when looking at prices. It is nerve-wracking enough to have to wait months and months for a letter of acceptance from a college, and then there is the worry of having to pay for it. My sister, Jen, went to Pitt-Johnson a few years ago, and she loved it and still wants to go back. She was one of the lucky ones who received a teaching job right after four years of school, but I’m sure Jen will say that college was definitely not cheap, considering her enormous pile of student loans. Plus, she spent two years obtaining a Masters degree at Duquesne, and that university likes money as much as a bank does. These facts prove that colleges can be great – greatly expensive.
The prices of colleges and vacations are crazy, but let’s talk about sports. I am a sports maniac. If I miss a Pitt game or Steelers game, I am not the person that you want to be around the next day. I love everything about the excitement, action, and the sweat-dripping intensity of sports, and these reasons make sports one of the best things in life. However, every great thing in life has its own downside. Sports overall are expensive. Whether a person is an athlete, a fan, or both, they are spending money when it comes to sports. It is mind-spinning to think that it costs around $80 for seats in the nosebleed section at a Penguins game or $120 for cheap seats at Steelers game. Cheap seats! Forget about paying the mortgage if you’re a season ticket holder. It is true that there is nothing better than watching sports events in person because it is hard to miss a play, but people also need money to live on. To make things better, lots around sporting events like to charge an astronomical $20 to $50 for a person to park there for five hours. The stadiums like to charge $5 for a 20 ounce iced tea, $6 for fries, and $7 for a burger; all of this food is not gold-plated or made of diamonds either. Why don’t the workers just kick customers down and take their wallets, if the stadiums want the money so bad? All of these factors cause me to limit the sporting events that I go to, and channels are now charging pay-per-view for many sporting events, which makes it expensive to watch games on T.V.
As an athlete, I love to play several sports, but the cost of playing is not eye appealing at all. Last year, it cost my family $70 for me to play in a church basketball league, and cross country costs hundreds of dollars in spikes, uniforms, sweatshirts, pants, and team shirts, despite my team fundraising. Hockey leagues are even crazier to play in because it costs $80 to play in a league, and then it is time to buy $50 sticks, pads, helmets, and backup equipment. As ridiculous as these prices are, schools are now charging activity fees to play sports. Everyone has lost their mind with greed. Eventually, I will be charged $20 for every time I touch a basketball. I might be the biggest fan of watching and playing sports, but the prices of sports have slowly become my enemies.
I have learned from personal experience and research that the best things in life really do have a price tag on them. People just like to have fun and relax. The problem is that fun and relaxing things are expensive. If someone wants a better life, great knowledge, luxurious items, and fun trips, that person will be forced to spend money whether they want to or not. Everyone will soon learn that the famous adage “The best things in life are free” is nothing but a catchy saying.
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2 comments:
I like the introduction better the second time I read it. I especially like this sentence: “Trust me; I know the truth.” It gets my attention, makes me want to read the rest of the essay, because you take the role of an ‘insider’ – someone who has seen through all the surface layers and knows the truth. I don’t fully agree with your message in this essay, but you make some excellent points, and support them very well.
I’m not sure if I’ve commented on this before, but I think you’ve gotten better with using humor in your writing, so that it’s more subtle and thought-provoking, instead of overdone and obvious.
There’s still an issue with awkwardly worded sentences, though. Take this for example…
“Over the years, commercials like MasterCard showed how great memories are priceless, but even they say at the end that people need credit cards for all of the objects, which eventually create the memories.”
As I’ve told you before, it’s easy to understand what you’re saying. But I just think you could change the wording itself so that it flows better, becomes music to the reader’s ear. Play around with it; rearrange, revise, revamp. Point out to yourself which parts sound especially coarse or redundant, and then try replacing them with different phrases until you find the words of best fit.
Say you change the above sentence to…
“Over the years, commercials like MasterCard have shown how great memories are priceless, but even they conclude that people need credit cards for the objects that aid in creating those priceless memories.”
This clears up any confusion/ambiguity about the “objects”; instead of just saying “all of the objects,” this defines the connection between the objects and the memories. It gets rid of the unnecessary “which” and accompanying comma (a simple “that,” instead, so that the reader’s eyes can flow right over the sentence, and don’t need to pause on the comma). It smoothes out the verb tense (“have shown” instead of “showed” – remember you’re talking about something that HAS HAPPENED “over the years,” not a single event that HAPPENED), and replaces the too-simple phrase “say at the end” with the more concise verb “conclude.”
So, you see…it’s an accumulation of tons of little changes. You don’t need to be the most graceful writer ever, with these kinds of sentences just naturally popping right out of you. All you need is an eye for the details and a willingness to spend some time on it. That way, your writing will turn out very graceful, despite the fact that it wasn’t that way originally.
Want to try a few more? Look at this sentence…
“I am an aspiring student, and I’ve looked at several colleges, but there is a large knot that forms in my stomach when looking at prices.”
Again, the idea is clear. But, again, it’s not worded very gracefully (no offense). Try this:
“I am an aspiring student, and I’ve looked at several colleges; however, a large knot forms in my stomach when I look at prices.”
That way you don’t have all the excess, useless words, like “there is” and “that.” It also creates a division between these two separate ideas, one involving your college search and the other your reaction to prices.
How about this one…
“College is said by many people to be the best time of a young person’s life.”
Instead:
“Many former students claim college is the best time of a young person’s life.”
This specifies the type of people, instead of using the ambiguous word, “people.” Also, you get rid of the “is said by.” I’ll create a couple more examples so you know what I mean about that…just pick which one sounds better to you in each pair.
The children released the balloons into the sky.
The balloons were released by the children into the sky.
The cow jumped over the moon.
The moon was jumped over by the cow.
You picked the first one, right? It’s because you have a subject that is actually doing something; you’re using an active rather than a passive voice.
I’ll say it again: I really like the conclusion. :-) Your conclusions tend to be even better than your introductions.
And thank you; I’m glad you enjoyed my essay.
I really connected to this paper. Probably because I feel the same way about a lot of the things you listed as your examples. The best things in life being free is a phrase we all have heard several times and it is very hard to understand how that can be true. You defined your argument very well here and I found myself constantly agreeing with your poitns. However, I am still not completely giving up hpoe on the certain things in life that can be defined as free in their own way. This was very well written and interestings. Great job :)
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