sat_essay
Apr 25, 2010
Writing Feedback / SAT: Are people motivated by personal satisfaction rather than by money or fame? [2]
This is my first draft. Please help me with it, thank you!
Nowadays, money, fame, and other superficial gains seem to have almost eroded every corner of people's values. Everyday, there are myriads of teenagers all over the world flocking to various talent shows, hoping to win wealth and popularity; there are millions of adults who give up their unrealistic dream of being novelists or adventurers, compromise and become bank accountants or businessmen, getting higher chances of earning more money. It seems that materialism has become the prevalent value of the entire society. However, Sister Antonia stands out and shows the world that the paramount motivation for people is personal satisfaction.
Mary Clake once lived a glamorous life at the Beverly Hills, accustomed to luxury and her weekend beach house. Until one day, she went on a charity mission to visit La Mesa prison and experienced an intense feeling that she had found her true life's work. Without any hesitation, she traded her sparkling gowns for the simple black habit of a Catholic nun, her English for Spanish and her airy Los Angeles home for a musty Mexican prison cell.
The life Mary Clake lives in La Mesa prison is irrefutably free of money and possessions, but her friends and the inmates all describe her as a saint filled with incredible energy, joy, and hopefulness. She provides aspirin, eyeglasses, false teeth and bail to thousands of petty thieves and other impoverished convicts. She washes and prepares for burial the grotesquely tortured bodies left in the gutters by drug gangs. She sings in the prison chapel to lift the spirits of the down-and-out and counsels rapists and drug traffickers as well as the guards who carry automatic weapons. For the last 25 years, she has been the Prison Angel of Tijuana, a tiny woman in a spotless white veil ministering to the miserable. For the last 25 years, she's known as Sister Antonia. In a recent interview she said, "I wouldn't trade this cell for any place in the world".
Cynical spirits may contend that no matter how harsh the living condition is, Sister Antonia does gain fame. But only if they look into her cell and see her plagued by heart problems and shortness od breath, but still insists on answering every knock at her door, they will know that personal satifaction is the only motivation here: she is living out her call.
Yearning for money can teach people how to lie in order to gain profit; longing for fame can abet them to put on a mask in every situation; striving for personal satisfaction can motivate people to embrace altruism, and live a life without regrets.
This is my first draft. Please help me with it, thank you!
Nowadays, money, fame, and other superficial gains seem to have almost eroded every corner of people's values. Everyday, there are myriads of teenagers all over the world flocking to various talent shows, hoping to win wealth and popularity; there are millions of adults who give up their unrealistic dream of being novelists or adventurers, compromise and become bank accountants or businessmen, getting higher chances of earning more money. It seems that materialism has become the prevalent value of the entire society. However, Sister Antonia stands out and shows the world that the paramount motivation for people is personal satisfaction.
Mary Clake once lived a glamorous life at the Beverly Hills, accustomed to luxury and her weekend beach house. Until one day, she went on a charity mission to visit La Mesa prison and experienced an intense feeling that she had found her true life's work. Without any hesitation, she traded her sparkling gowns for the simple black habit of a Catholic nun, her English for Spanish and her airy Los Angeles home for a musty Mexican prison cell.
The life Mary Clake lives in La Mesa prison is irrefutably free of money and possessions, but her friends and the inmates all describe her as a saint filled with incredible energy, joy, and hopefulness. She provides aspirin, eyeglasses, false teeth and bail to thousands of petty thieves and other impoverished convicts. She washes and prepares for burial the grotesquely tortured bodies left in the gutters by drug gangs. She sings in the prison chapel to lift the spirits of the down-and-out and counsels rapists and drug traffickers as well as the guards who carry automatic weapons. For the last 25 years, she has been the Prison Angel of Tijuana, a tiny woman in a spotless white veil ministering to the miserable. For the last 25 years, she's known as Sister Antonia. In a recent interview she said, "I wouldn't trade this cell for any place in the world".
Cynical spirits may contend that no matter how harsh the living condition is, Sister Antonia does gain fame. But only if they look into her cell and see her plagued by heart problems and shortness od breath, but still insists on answering every knock at her door, they will know that personal satifaction is the only motivation here: she is living out her call.
Yearning for money can teach people how to lie in order to gain profit; longing for fame can abet them to put on a mask in every situation; striving for personal satisfaction can motivate people to embrace altruism, and live a life without regrets.