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28 October 2012

Argue For or Against: William James Quote

Introduction

This paper argues in for and against the quote of Williams James “the greatest discovery of my generation is that a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes.” This quote is quite interesting and persuasive, as well as targets the human philosophies. This quote can be perceived in two different ways: one is altering one's mind with good manner to transform people live towards ethical living. On the other hand, this alteration of attitudes in the direction of negativity, like drug involvement and participation in criminal activities. Despite these two views, this essay argue this statement in the paradigm whether a human being can alter his life by altering his attitudes is the greatest discovery of my generation or not.

Discussion

This essay supports and opposes the alteration of attitudes or mind changing. Human beings are also known as believing animals because they develop and alter beliefs with the passage of time, but sometimes it may leads to harmful behaviors. For instance, problem drinking, obesity, and smoking that may lead to premature death and chronic illness. Yet 30 percent of US population is overweight, 20 percent smokes, and 15 percent are binge drinkers. Moreover, number of people across the world also involves in harmful behavioral pattern such as violence, anger, dependency and jealously that are harmful to their important relationships. Undoubtedly, it is difficult for human beings to change attitudes by which they can change their life. People feel relax in their comfort zone. Culture and attitudes of an individual are indeed engendered in one's life, and it is quite difficult for them to come out from their status quo, even most of the time they are not ready to do so, or even refute it (Van Rooij, ...