My Contradictions

In the beginning of the book Notes From the Underground, my views of the Underground Man was very negative. I disliked the way he contradicted himself all the time and not being true to himself. Later on, I realized that his flaws resembled many of my flaws. I think sticking to our morals without being capricious is difficult. It's natural for people to change their minds, fickle in their opinion and actions. Thinking about the contradicting opinions and actions I have made throughout my life, I realized that I'm no better than the Underground Man in ways that I fail to stay faithful to my beliefs.

I recognize my contradictions daily. The best way to describe the contradiction can be explained through "gum giving". Whenever I bring gum to school, I don't want to give it to anyone so then, I end up lying that I don't have any or hide them in my backpack. But when one of my friends come to school with a pack of gum, I tend to ask, -- beg for a piece of gum. And when they say they ran out, I simply refute them and yap at them to stop lying. Everyday, I tell myself that I'm a big advocate of saving the environment. Interestingly, I go through a lot of bottled waters, wasted construction papers and unnecessary plastic items. I'm also a big supporter of saving the endangered animals. Then I realized how many animal fur related items I had. Knowing that I wasn't being true to my morals, I felt embarrassed and wrong, but at the same time, I found myself simply ignoring the rules that I set up for myself.

"Lets help the poor, but don't let them come near our neighborhood because they are dirty and disturbing"...

Whenever I sympathized with the African kids on the cover of a National Geographic, or the AID victims on TV, I thought that I was a very moral person. But what I realized was that I actually wasn't. All I did was think, nothing was put to action. If I was so worried about the dying kids in Africa, or the victims of AIDs, I would've donated all of my possessions and flew to Africa to help them. But I wasn't. Instead, I was sitting on my couch, watching movies and doing things as I pleased. Although I wanted to fix the problems in the world, I didn't want them interfering my happiness. Just like the quote above, people are very contradicting in ways that people say things the emotions they feel however they never do anything.

I think that is the dangers or the hypocrisy that society continues to live on.