Overcoming Obstacles

John Nicholas Pieper

Kaplan University

Essay: Overcoming Obstacles

16 May 2012

Why has society become so obsessed with the pursuit of perfection? Are we really that afraid to be wrong or make a mistake? Whatever happened to the old saying, “Imperfection is Beauty”? Since childhood, we are taught that “Honest Abe” never told a lie, that our favorite stories end “happily ever after”, and that super heroes never die. Unfortunately, these lessons contradict reality. As humans, we gain knowledge through trial and error. Why else would every pencil come with a built-in eraser? In grade school, most of us have been afraid to raise our hands because we don’t want to deal with the consequences that come with blurting out an incorrect answer. Even though no real harm can be done to us, the laughs and giggles of our fellow classmates seem like too much to bare.

The very moment our mother gives birth to us, we are automatically given obstacles that we must learn to deal with for the rest of our lives. Whether it is our gender, our race, or our social standing, we all possess attributes that will be judged upon by society. For instance, Latino actor/comedian George Lopez is a prime example. George was born on April 23, 1961 in a small California town. Little did he know, his father would abandon him when he was two months old, and to make things worse, his mother would do the same when he was ten. She remarried and moved to Sacramento, leaving George with his grandma, who was an emotionally distant woman who spent her lifetime working in factories. Full of resentment towards George, she was physically and emotionally abusive. After barely surviving childhood, Lopez decided to transform his painful experiences into material for his stand –up comedy act. By the late 1980s, Lopez was a successful comedian, playing clubs around the country and appearing on television shows and comedy specials. He made the jump to films in the 1990s with comedies such as Ski Patrol (1990)...