Doing The Inconvenient: Cyrano De Bergerac

Doing the Inconvenient

“Do to others as you would have them do to you.” Most people know this verse by heart

and the majority were taught to live their life by it and comes from Luke 6:31. This little phrase

is what I view unselfishness to truly mean. At the beginning of this school year I was arrogant

and didn’t treat others how I would want to be treated. I went from living to satisfy the needs of

others to only doing what would benefit myself. I took a trip to Salt Lake City and this

experience taught me what being unselfish truly means. It set a seed within me that has been

ever growing since, especially influenced from school, in particularly English and the books

we’ve been reading. Cyrano de Bergerac,
This touched me the most because I saw how nice these kids truly were. They spent over

an hour and a half thanking the instructors and then told their stories. Many tears were shed and

then that was the last time I saw all these kids whom I spent a week of my life getting to know.

This is what set the seed in me that is causing me to become less selfish. I though about them a

lot after leaving the ski resort and still think about them today and how many more people have

it much worse than me and instead of being “woe as me” they only think about others. When I

got back to school we started reading the book Cyrano de Bergerac and this is where I truly

began to change who I was.

As I first opened up the book I was less than pleased with what I was reading until I

began to see a similarity in me and Cyrano. Cyrano began to book as cocky, arrogant, and very

selfish. He only cared about building up himself and making him look better. Cyrano did the by

degrading others to make himself look like strong and powerful. For example he loves his
In today’s society many people say they are unselfish just because they have helped

someone out or loaned someone money but usually it’s because they expect something in

return. I believe that to be unselfish means that you should never expect something back. If

you’re thinking you’re going to get something out of helping someone or something thing then

you’re doing it for yourself or it’s just a favor. Both of these scenarios, when called an act of

unselfishness, are actually the complete opposite because it’s only to help you. In Master Harold

and the boys it was very important to Sam to help Hally grow up to become a man of magnitude.

He also did a very unselfish deed by carrying Hally’s cripple father, who was in a drunken state,

back home from the bar on his back. This was very unselfish of Hally since he was getting

nothing in return and was only doing it because he cared for his friend Hally greatly and wanted

to show him what a real man would do. Sam also reminds Hally of how he helped him build the

kite. He say he built the kite so Hally would have something to be proud of and to be proud