Generation after generation of societies change as time goes on. Maybe not so much the society itself, but the people in it do. The value of life now differs depending on the different kinds of experiences people go through. We will all have different obstacles in our life, but the way we get through them and live to tell the tale is the way life should be valued for.
In It’s not about the bike: My journey back to life, anautobiographyby Lance Armstrong, he is a great inspiration to America for winning one of the most grueling sporting events on the face of the earth, the Tour de France. A 2, 290 – mile race through the hills and mountains of France on a bicycle. Yet this is still not what puts value into life, through his eyes. Lance was diagnosed with testicular cancer at the age of 25. As tough as it is to fight a cancer as severe as that, he says it was his profession that helped him fight it. His profession taught him how to fight and compete against all odds and obstacles. A near death experience is what made Lance ask himself, “ If I live, who is it that I intend to be?” This is where I truly believe people start contemplating what the value of life is.
Another example of an obstacle people sometimes go through in order to assign value to life issuicide. The world famous Shakespeare has a play precisely on the basis of this issue. In the soliloquy ofHamlethe is a man who doesn’t know whether to live or commit suicide, but carefully analyzing the aftermath of suicide and what comes after death is what makes the character have a change of heart. Again we see that what we go through in life, the obstacles we face and overcome is what we use to assign value to life.
To further conclude this statement, the way society should assign value to life is the way we have been doing it for years, by basing it on the different experiences people go through and letting each individual have a say in what they think the value of life is. Everyone’s opinion is different, but that is the beauty of it. From all the differences it creates some of the greatest stories ever told. That is how value should be assigned.
