Essay: Should we never never give up?

Q: Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: We should never never give up.

From numerous speeches, movies, songs, we get the idea that we should always hold fast to our goals no matter what happens. In other words, we must never never give up. They say that perseverance is awfully essential. However, in my perspective, sometimes we should learn to give up, to let it go.

In the first place, all roads lead to Rome. In the pursuit of goals, we need to be flexible and insightful. When we have tried in vain over and again to address a problem, it’s time to stop for a while and reflect: This method does not work; have I just driven into a dead end? If so, then you need to be flexible, giving up all the efforts you put into the dead end and embarking on a new road to solve the problem so as to continue the goal to Rome. However, no matter how persevere you were at the original method, the dead end would never come alive.

In addition, giving up can bring the start of something new. Just as the old proverb goes ‘When one door shuts, another opens’. But the premise of another open door is that you have be courageous to shut a door at first. To take Yelena Isinbayeva as an instance. Yelena Isinbayeva, who is considered as the greatest pole vaulter of all time, is a person who knows to give up. From the age of 5-15, Isinbayeva had trained as a gymnast. However, she found that as she grew she was too tall to be competitive in gymnastics. Therefore, she gave up gymnastics and took up pole vaulting instead, which later turned out to be a wise choice. Now, she is a two-time Olympic gold medalist and three-time World Champion. Isinbayeva has the courage to shut the door of gymnastics so that she can step into the door of pole-vaulting.

Nevertheless, I am not recommending you to give up whenever you step into a predicament. No matter what occupation you choose, what goal you are after, what kind of life you want to lead, there are bound to be stumbling blocks. If one gives up without even trying to remove them, he may end up having no achievements at all. We are all rowing the boat of fate and waves are commonplace. It is best for us to try to conquer them at first. Yet if you feel that a certain wave is insurmountable, maybe you need to divert your course and try other ways. Blind perseverance never work out.

TOEFL listening lectures: Why does the professor mention Mona Lisa?

Hi Littleting, another excellent essay. Your writing sounds very natural for the most part, though you do have a few words and phrases that I would recommend changing. Also, watch out for your sentence fragments. Overall, I would rate this a 4.5 out of 5.

I also wanted to add that I liked the side you chose to support in your argument. I think knowing when to quit is one of the biggest factors in success. If you want to practice your listening skills, you might want to listen to this podcast, which is on this very topic:

freakonomics.com/2011/09/30/new- … -quitting/

Thanks Luschen!! You can always pinpoint my weaknesses!

Wow, you are so considerate~ the podcast you recommended is awesome! I had a hard time seeking for ‘successful quitters’ when I was working on this essay. [So I just made do with Yelena Isinbayeva, the pole vaulter.]
Plus, I found that the idea and characters in that episode could also be used in many other essays!!

Many thanks, Luschen!