Life Lesson

         Life is about trying to find happiness every day. Some find happiness through people, through objects, activities, and even animals. Personally, I find happiness in all of the above. Others find happiness through careers but some are focused more on money than what they really want to do. I feel they would better find happiness if money was no object. Some people’s happiness is more extrinsic which means through outside motivation and some find happiness more intrinsically which means self motivated. The poet Robert Frost understood these simple statements and gave examples of this in his poem “After Apple-Picking”. Through the use of metaphors and imagery Frost conveys a message that sometimes we make mistakes but we should still work hard for what is wanted because in the end it is worth the necessary hardships.
         Frost knows that hard work is important although we sometimes make mistakes and do not see the appeal and he uses imagery to illustrate this. Frost stated in his poem “After Apple-Picking”, “ There were ten thousand fruit to touch,/ Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall” (l. 29-30). I feel Frost wants to give the reader a visual of just how much work is involved with this process that seems so simplistic because Frost goes on to say “ For all/ That struck the earth,/ No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, went surely to the cider apple heap/ As of no worth” (l. 31-35). I feel this can go deeper than just apple picking, into something bigger like life itself. From this I conclude Frost is saying that life is hard work and using apple as an example, say I picked an apple. In my mind I would be thinking “Yes, one down!!!” and all of a sudden I drop the apple. I still have to pick another apple to fill my quota and the dropped apple would be like a momentary deterrence from the rest of my apple picking no matter if the apple is bruised, ruined, or have no marks at all. Well it is the same way in life. Where I am going with this is every so often it only takes one small thing, say one dropped apple, to slow down or delay work and mess everything up. Also just like the dropped apple is seen as having no worth, occasionally we make one little blunder and we feel we have no worth and that after our mistake it is not worth the continuation of our work but Frost shows us we should be tenacious and careful because in the end hard work has it’s benefits.
         Frost also uses metaphors to confirm that working hard is worth it in the end. Frost says “For I have had too much/ O1-+f apple-picking: I am overtired/ Of the great harvest I myself desired” (l. 38-30). I feel this is metaphoric to life. This is giving an example of intrinsic motivation because he says “I myself desired” and although it is still hard work, he feels it is worth it for himself. This memorandum can be placed into any situation in life where work is needed to be done either intrinsically or extrinsically and your faced with the of whether it is worth it or not to actually do the work. Frost ,I feel, thinks it is worth it for the reason that he wrote a poem about a man who has been apple-picking for some time now because he is experienced. I say the man is experienced because he knows he has to be gentle with the apples, and that he cannot drop them or they become of no worth. So they fact the he is practiced and has been doing this for a while means he chose to do the hard work necessary whether it be for monetary compensation or just for his own personal reasons. I imagine it might be a blend of both reasons because he actually says the words “…..I myself desired” but he goes on to say “There are ten thousand fruit to touch….”. I feel this may be for business purposes because I feel no one would have 10,000 apples otherwise. Nevertheless he realized the hard work was necessary no matter what his reasoning may be.
         Frost is trying to tell us to work hard in everything we do and to not dwell on our mistakes because no one is perfect. So keeping that in mind what if money was no object and we could do anything we wanted to do as long as we remembered Frost’s message?  I personally have always wanted to help people and be in the medical field. I have wanted to be an anesthesiologist ever since I saw this movie called “Awake” where a man was undergoing a heart transplant but when the anesthesiologist put him to sleep he gave the patient to little anesthetic and he was under anesthetic paralysis which means he could feel everything they were doing to him while he was in surgery but he could not do anything about it because he could not move any part of his body or even utter the smallest cry as they were cutting into his skin. Yes, I know it was just a movie but this same thing happens every single day for whatever reason and at times people even die because too much anesthetic is given. I know this is a great amount of responsibility because I have someone else’s life in my hands but that is what I want to do and what I still would do to contribute to society if money was no object. I would work had and if I made a mistake I would not take it lightly, but I would not let it stop me from helping people either. I feel if I can remember Frost’s message I will be very successful in everything I do.