Self-Acceptance In Steinbeck's Of Mice And Men

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You can’t escape who you are, how you feel, what others think of you, or what you’ve done; all you can do is live with the consequences. Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck explains this through the lives of characters who all have to live with the choices they make. Some of these characters have to deal with the life they never wanted or being different than everybody else or guilt. These people all work on a ranch and through the course of this small but heart-wrenching novel they all overcome challenges many people hope they never have to face. All of these characters, though they have many differences is so many ways, are similar through one thing: living with the person they made themselves become. Karl Perera also understands the importance …show more content…

Self-acceptance can make people feel more confident as a person and make them feel better about themself. “Self-acceptance means that you understand who you truly are and where your strengths and weaknesses lie. You know what you want. This will allow you to be comfortable with your place in the world and be honest with yourself”(Perera). The project I created is all ties in with how the characters in Of Mice and Men see themselves and how they go on with their lives whether they like it or not. Perera defines self-acceptance and the most important part is that people are comfortable with their place in the world. If they can’t accept themselves or where they are in life, no one is going to respect them if they don’t even respect themselves. Curly’s wife was so unhappy with the place she was in her life and she couldn’t accept that this was her life and if she didn’t like it, she needed to do something about it instead of blaming others for her mistakes. Besides self-acceptance, people need to be happy with themselves. “Self acceptance means that you are happy with who and what you are but it does not mean that you give up any hopes or change or improvement. Self acceptance is a necessary first step towards self improvement…”(Perera) To put it simply, to lead a happy life people have to be happy with themselves and their lives as a whole. There is nobody else that can make others feel this way about themselves so they just need to learn to be happy with their life because this is the path they are on and they can’t go back and change it now, so they might as well be happy with what they’ve got. All of the characters in Of Mice and Men have to accept where their life is, and if not, all it’s going to do is make them eternally unhappy. Choose to be happy and learn self-acceptance or live a lonely, unhappy