Self-Sacrifice
The one quality that has defined great people throughout every era of time has been self-sacrifice, it's the one thing that can touch any heart, melt the heart of stone, and make a person strive to become better, to one day become like their idol.
Throughout history the people who have been remembered with the dearest expressions have been the people who gave something up for something they believed greater than themselves. What is great about these people is that they usually place everything above themselves. Examples of such beloved sacrifice of oneself are people like Mohatma Gahndi, Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, and of course Jean Valjean.
In the book Les Miserables the character Jean Valjean is the one you feel the most for. You see his life progress as he goes through it, you see his decisions, why he made them, and you grow to know him as you would a very close friend. This is a miracle of Victor Hugo's writing is that he makes you feel for his characters, he makes a fantastic character for the reader to understand and see in his writing, and Jean Valjean was his masterpiece.
Jean Valjean is the best model for self-sacrifice in the book. He starts the story in a prison which he got into because he was stealing bread for his sister's family, he became a hard bitter person and then was saved by the Bishop. He became a good man, a christian man, who ran a business and the town. He gave up all of his possessions, his accumulated wealth and social status to reprieve a stranger he had never met. He risked everything to save the child of a woman he barely knew. He raised the child as his own, risking life and limb to keep her safe. When she grew up and fell in love he risked everything, once again, to save him and bring him back to her, so that she could be happy. He always looked after someone else, he barely looked after himself. To the very end of his life he was looking after his loved ones, telling them that they need not worry aobut the money, that it was well earned money, legitimate. To his dying breath he expressed love and appreciation to his fellow man.
I believe that such self-sacrifice is one of the main reasons that this world remains tolerable to live in. The idea of non-selfishness, of thinking of others, is one that is being quickly forgotten in a world of “looking out for number one”. I find that an even greater tragedy than Les Miserables. People always need to be able to think above themselves, look to a higher cause, and serve it with all of their hearts and minds. People should be able to do things for other people, even if it's not in their own interest, they should do it, to make the world in general a better place. That's why Gahndi would not eat, and Mother Teresa lived in poverty, why Jean Valjean tore himself apart for others, they do it to make the world a better place, in the small ways they can, they make this little world that we occupy a more loving home. They combat anger with calmity, apathy with love, they are the antidote to the world's corruption. They are our lights, and many love them for what they've done.
I think everyone has a little bit of this in them, a little bit of love for people in general, most of us don't show it much, don't even use it much, but I think that we all need to take a lesson from people like Jean Valjean that is make the world a better place in whatever way you can.
This is an essay I wrote for English, I like it, thought people could read it if they wanted.
