Example essays with notes

Nowadays, work is a very important part of every person’s life. Some people think that older people should be encouraged to continue working after the retirement age, while others think they should retire and leave jobs for young people. In this essay I will discuss about both views and give my opinion.

On the one hand, there are many reasons why older people should continue working. Firstly, older workers has a lot of experiance, so they can teach younger colleagues. For example, an older nurse knows how to deal with difficult situations that a new nurse has never seen. Moreover, many older people are still healthy and want to stay active. If they stop working, they may feel boring and lonely. This is not good for their health.

On the other hand, some people believe that older people should retire. The main reason is that the number of jobs are limited, so if older people do not leave their jobs, it is difficult for young people to find job. Many young people are unemployed after they will finish university, and this can make them feel hopeless. In addition, older workers are sometimes slower and they find it more hard to learn new technology.

In my opinion, I think that older people should be able to decide when they stop working but they should not be forced to continue. Some people enjoy their job and they are still healthy, so it is better for them to work. However, other people are tired and they want to rest.

In conclusion, both views have advantages and disadvantages. Although older workers have a lot of experience, I believe that it is more important to give jobs to young people.

Not long ago, most teenagers learned to cook a basic meal or sew on a button simply by watching their parents. Today, many young adults leave home without these skills. In my view, this is mainly the result of busy family lives and a culture of convenience, and it could be reversed if schools and local communities made practical skills part of everyday learning again.

The first reason is that many parents have little time to pass these skills on. When both parents work long hours, it is often quicker to buy a ready meal or order food through an app than cooking together, and children therefore grow up seeing cooking as optional rather than essential. A second cause is that repairing things no longer seems worth the effort. Clothes and household items have become so cheap that a torn shirt or a broken lamp is usually thrown away and replaced. As a result, young people rarely see anyone mending something, so they never learn how to do it themselves.

Schools can play an important role in solving this problem. Many have reduced practical classes in order to spend more time on exam subjects, but even one lesson a week in cooking or basic repairs would give every pupil a foundation, regardless of their home life. Local councils could also support community workshops where volunteers show residents how to fix bicycles or alter clothes. Such projects are relatively inexpensive to run, and they have the added benefit of bringing different generations together.

In conclusion, young people are losing practical skills because their families have less time and because replacing things has become easier than repairing them. Bringing these skills back into schools and communities would help the next generation to become more independant and less wasteful.

It is comforting to believe that anyone can succeed if they work hard enough, and effort clearly matters. However, I agree with this view only in part: hard work is usually necessary for success, but the opportunities a person has to use it are shaped to a large degree by circumstances they did not choose.

There is no doubt that determination separates people who start from similar positions. Two graduates from the same university, with the same qualifications, may be in very different places ten years later simply because one kept developing new skills while the other stopped once she had secure job. Effort also compounds over time: each extra piece of work makes the next opportunity more likely, so small differences in commitment can grow into large differences in achievement. In this sense, those who argue that success is earned have a point.

What this argument overlooks, however, is that people rarely begin from similar positions. A child whose parents can pay for tutoring, a quiet room to study in and a year of unpaid work experience starts the race several steps ahead, while an equally able child who must work in the evenings to support the family may never have the time to show what she can do. Luck plays a part as well: a serious illness, a recession in the year someone graduates or a chance meeting with the right employer can change a career overnight, however hard the person works. To describe success as mainly the reward of effort is therefore to ignore half the picture.

In conclusion, hard work and determination are essential ingredients of success, but they are rarely enough on their own. Where people start, and the luck they meet along the way, largely decide how far their effort can take them.