Decisions,decisions, decisions

Well first off I am starting my writing for this blog post at exactly 11:11, so hopefully that symbolizes good luck…but anyway let’s talk about Measure for Measure.

So Measure for Measure…

As this work comes to an end, I am sure that we all have many thoughts flying through our heads.  Is the Duke crazy?  What is Isabella going to do?  Where the heck has Juliet been?  Alas Shakespeare loves to leave us asking questions, but isn’t that what every great work is supposed to do?  

To cause us to question, wonder, and rethink what we thought we had previously understood.  Thinking about the play and how it can relate to our own lives, I thought of the title of the play: Measure for Measure.  Isabella is forced to determine whether her morals and chastity or her brother is more important to her.  How do we measure the worth of things in our own lives?  How do we decide what is most important to us?  Currently I am taking economics and drawing economic principles into play, we learned about something called the cost benefit analysis.   Basically this model measures if the cost of something is worth the benefit.  We also learned that the average cost of a human life is about $10 million.  I hate this.  I really do. I hate how humans always feel the need to quantify and materialize everything.  How much is this?  How much is that?  Everything is apparently worth something, but that’s not how it works!  Some stuff is precious, but unfortunately in life sometimes we must choose what is most important to us.  How can you possibly choose between two priceless things?  How do you choose between the ocean and the sky?  I think these choices are what define us as people.  Summer or winter. Coke or Pepsi.  Cats or dogs.  Shakespeare provides characters to us who are forced to choose what is important to them.  Isabella must choose.  The Duke must choose.  But here’s the thing: what if you want both?  What if you like cats and dogs?  I guess life isn’t fair sometimes, but still I feel unsatisfied.  I personally think it has to do with our American upbringing.  As Americans we are raised to want it all.  We believe that we need it all-we need to have everything to be happy.  But is it possible to be happy with one simple? (I am going to use simple as a noun here because I think it would make a nice noun, but unfortunately dictionaries don’t agree with me)  I think what Shakespeare is trying to show us through Measure for Measure is that we can’t have it all.  Sometimes we have to choose and honestly that is so hard.  Even after Isabella is able to have her brother and her chastity, she is again forced to choose whether or not to marry the Duke.  Choosing what to write this blog post on was almost impossible for me (somehow still not sure how I ended up with this rambling rant).  Even something as simple as deciding which socks I want to wear somehow becomes the question of the century.  Choices, choices, choices.  Too many choices-but hey I guess we gotta have that free will.  

To finish I am going to end with something I heard somewhere which honestly disproves my case, but I think it is also important to remember:

Which wing is more important to a bird: the left or the right?

So to close, choices are hard and the options are many.  Sometimes we must choose and sometimes it is just honestly impossible.  Thinking ahead I think of all the choices we are going to have to make this year (college, majors, all that fun stuff, etc.) I hope that we can all find the balance to choose what will make us happy and choose what makes us us not what others want us to choose.  I think deep inside we all know what we want to choose, it is just accepting the choice for ourselves that is hard.  Good luck my friends.