In the story “Everyday Use”, there lives a family; Dee, Maggie and their mother. During a flashback in the story, it mentioned how their family saved up all their money just to get Dee education. Dee got the education and soon went to college, but with Maggie and their mother in poverty. When Dee came back from college, she starts to act differently. She treated the possessions of her family like mere tools and items, when in reality when she says its her culture and tradition, but really, she’s not appreciating it as her culture and tradition. In this story later on she shows that she’s really spoiled and takes everything for granted. All that money Maggie and her mother saved up was for her, yet she thought it was done by her hard work and effort. She even thought that Maggie and her mother was living in a bad way and she was even ashamed that her family was in such a bad situation. Not because of her sympathy, but because of her pride, she thinks she is superior. She isn’t even grateful for all the sacrifices her family made to get her into school.
In this story I learned that we shouldn’t take education, having good technology and clean food or water for granted. Many people on this planet are suffering because they don’t have the things we have. We might look around us and say “everybody has these things” but in reality, millions of people don’t. We’re just fortunate enough to have good housing, food, water, technology and countless other things. Most people will take these things for granted and would think they will always have these things, some people were born poor, some people were born rich. But that is not the case, it is only by our awareness of our surroundings will we ever get to a high social status or at least have a good life. In this story, Maggie thinks that getting into school and college was only because she was smart and she worked hard, not because her family raised enough money to get her into a school. She not only ignores that, but she is also ashamed that her family is so poor. If her family didn’t get her into school, they will have the money, they will be in a better situation but because her family loved her and cared for her, they sacrificed a lot to get her a good education. Dee pays back with disrespect and ungratefulness. We need to realize that not everything is because of our work, we need to realize that many people sacrifice time and money for us to get good education, good food, clean water and many more. Our ignorance is what makes us ungrateful and unaware of other people’s help and sacrifices in our lives.
Being selfish is a big problem we have everyday. We don’t realize other people’s help or we just choose to ignore it. We need to change that and be grateful for our well-being, grateful for everyday that we have what we have. Even something really small could be the cause of somebody’s love and caring attitude towards you. We need To learn and be grateful for what we have with us today.