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H. L. Mencken's The Average Man Does Not Want To Be Free

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H. L. Mencken wrote “the average man does not want to be free. He simply wants to be safe.” I agree with this quote because of the deeper meaning it has behind it. In today’s society, people do not seem to have ambitions or dreams that they want to pursue. A lot of people settle with a job that pays just enough to make a living or they do not go beyond their limits to get a higher education to be able to make more money. These people are overcome by fear. They are afraid to continue moving forward and taking risks. The quote itself can be translated into, an everyday person does not want to be happy and ambitious. That person will settle with what will keep them alive. I agree with this quote for a few reasons. To begin, the people in today’s society do not want to get out of their comfort zone in search of something greater. They can settle for anything that will keep them alive. This is not how these people should think. Everyone has at least one dream or goal in …show more content…

We all know that staying safe will keep us alive, but it is a boring way to live. The biggest regret a person can have is never trying what they always wanted. As mentioned before, time never stops, so it is crucial that they act now. We fight a battle before we are even born against millions of others to see who will get to the egg first and be fertilized and born. We did not come to this world to just be safe and to be afraid to do new things. We all have a reason to be here and the journey of life is to find our purpose in life. It is what makes life so great, but to get there we must take risks and overcome that fear. People are afraid of taking risks because of failure. They are afraid to fail and not get anywhere. However, that fear can be overcome is they keep pushing and keep trying and keep taking risks. Taking risks will get a person out of their “safe” comfort zones and the result of this can be something so

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