The Giver "Cycle" and a Question.

In my Humanities class, we have been put in groups. Each group is assigned to read a certain book and give his/her thoughts on the material. I was assigned to read The Giver by Lois Lowry. We are only aloud to read certain sections of the book at a time, so in our emails, there is a document shared in Google Docs with pages that were supposed to read depending on the book were reading. (Example; people with the book The Giver had to read pages 1-25 in week one.) We have to pay attention because once you have read the certain section, you have to reflect on it. If you are reflecting on the section on your own you have to do all the work, 2 passages, 2 connections, 2 questions, and 2 vocabulary found in the book. If you are working with a partner you balance the work. Meaning you do 1 passage, 1 connection, 1 question and 1 vocab. If you do that you except your partner to also do 1 passage, 1 connection, 1 question and 1 vocab. If either person does nothing well then, your gonna get a bad grade. Now, with blogger, we had to choose between 3 questions to share your thoughts on the books, what I like to sum it up as, "behavior". This is the question I chose. (The question is based on the book.)

Would you like your future to be decided by others? Why or why not?

Well, to me, I want to choose my own future. I wouldn't like it to be decided by others because I like making my own decisions, it makes me feel free. I'm not quite sure if Jonas would rather make his own decisions or not, the book really hasn't backed that up much. It's probably just because to Jonas, it's normal. Not making your own decisions is every day life. If I couldn't make my own decisions, I'd probably be a mess. I also wouldn't like my future to be decided by some one else because, well, who really does? No one wants to be forced to do something they don't want to do. It's not fun. Like in the book The Giver Asher told Jonas a rumor, it was that this one guy did not like the job he was assigned, so he swam across a river to go join another community. Honestly, I wouldn't blame him, if he didn't want to do a job that much, then why would he be there in the first place? That's not right.

I also think that I wouldn't like my future to be chosen is because if it did end up being something I really didn't enjoy, then you can't enjoy it. Well, I kind of just repeated enjoy again, but it's true. It may sound like I just mentioned the same thing in the top paragraph. But it's not exactly the same. You see, if you don't enjoy something, then you won't be good at it because you won't care to listen because what's the point? If you don't like it then obviously it's not very interesting to you so you won't have a passion for it. If you don't have a passion for something then the people who do won't enjoy your company because then you'll just be a drag. Right now Jonas is in the position where he's been chosen a place but he's not sure he wants it. He's not quite sure if he'll really be passionate about something that's cut off from the community cause the fact is that he loves all his friends and probably wants to see them again. So I'm guessing that training that is cut off, that he can be alone for won't suit him. But who knows? He may enjoy it knowing he has all the qualities for it, but just because you have the quality doesn't really mean you'll actually like it. The Elders in the book should really put that in to consideration.

Another reason why I'd rather choose my own future than have it chosen is because what happens if I get a job, enjoy it at first, then get sick of it? I might not want to take the chance to get a different job afraid there would be no good jobs vacant for me, you know what they say, "If a job is vacant every one must hate it." Well, that not really a "you know what they say" considering I just thought that up now. Pretty cool huh? Anyway, in Jonas' world, you can't really pick a new job, I bet your could ask for one but they probably already put you in your "perfect match" already and would have no idea "where your skills can be shone". Well, I guess there may be none of those types of things, but, maybe you'll enjoy the "not your perfect match but good enough? spot even more. It really depends. If you get chosen a job, it can be hard. You'd probably wonder how the decision was made and the big question, will I fit in? But, if you choose your own job you'd be choosing it on your own, meaning you probably already know you'll,

1. Enjoy it.
2.Fit in. (Well, not with everyone, maybe someone did get forced. See what I mean? Someone who did get force may rain on your parade.)
3. Be able to change jobs if this one doesn't work out. (But, if that's the case, why did you choose it in the first place?)
4. Possibly love your new/first boss. (Trust me though, not always.)
5. Realize that if you know all these things that the job is worth it and has a point!

That is my well thought out answer to a well done question. I hope you enjoyed getting my opinion on things and I hope your hoping for more opinions cause more may come based on the next section of, THE GIVER. (By Lois Lowry.)