What I learned about endings in life | Teen Ink

What I learned about endings in life

July 14, 2022
By AliceLi BRONZE, Westlake Village, California
AliceLi BRONZE, Westlake Village, California
1 article 0 photos 0 comments

Favorite Quote:
It is how we use our lives that determine what kind of men we are.


It seems like we’re always anticipating different endings in life.

We have known it since we were young that a school week ends after five days; a movie ends when we see the closing credits; a year ends when Christmas comes. And I did not grasp how much we care about these endings until I came to realize that while watching this video, I looked at the progress bar to see when it's going to end. But sometimes our anticipation still is two-faced: When we have a fond dream, we wish that it will never end; and when we are having a class, we wish that it will end soon. And for the same reason, we want an ending to the pandemic because it is like a nightmare to most of us. I still remember the day when my school got shut down due to the pandemic. It feels like in the morning my friends and I were still at school and suddenly we can only see each other through screens. The reason that the pandemic hits everyone hard is that we will never know when it will end, but we’re always looking forward to the day that it ends.

If I have to say one lesson that I learn from the pandemic, it is that not everything has an ending. And it is a lesson that many people used almost three years to learn. I have been asking myself for a long time when will the pandemic end? Will it ever end completely? Time did not answer me. Instead, it only proved to me that it is unlikely to end anytime soon. The pandemic has changed so many things in just the past two years: The closing of in-door dining, the bankruptcy of many offline stores, and the restriction of tourism. Yet during that time, I noticed the perseverance of many people: The sellers that used social media and internet platforms to sell their products, the students that still give their hard-works in front of the screens every day, and the health care people who must wear the mask and protective suit day and night. All these things have taught me that when hard times hit and when there seems to have no ending, our mentality will lead to totally different results. Most of the time we cannot change the development of the situation, nor can we know when the ending will come. But viewing the situation negatively cannot bring the ending, it will only make things worse. Instead of asking "When is it going to end?" maybe we should start asking ourselves "What can we do now to make it better?

A lot of people like to refer to the sentence that says, “When one door closes another open.” But as the video tells us, there are no that many doors in life. Those doors can only be seen in the eyes of those who have the positive attitude to look for them.


The author's comments:

This is an original piece of my opinion article that is inspired by a New York Times Video called "What the pandemic can teach us about endings?"


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