As soon as I got home from school, I quickly changed into my most comfortable pair of sweat pants and a Gators shirt, grabbed a bag of chips, and strolled over to the couch to watch some television before I had to start my homework. But to my surprise, I didn't even turn the channel, before I was completely fascinated by the program on Oprah. A young woman, around twenty-five years old, began telling her story to the world. .
It all began, she said, after her father passed away when she was seventeen. This devastating experience left her directionless and depressed. Instead of coping with her troubles in some other way, she turned to alcohol as the "answer" to her problems. And soon, that became her method of handling every troubling situation. Drinking soon became her hobby and she began replacing her relationships with alcohol. When her friends would try to make her see the problem, she quickly refuted the idea- becoming angry at them for even thinking it was a possibility for her to be an alcoholic. .
Years later, after realizing that they were correct and that her drinking was a problem for her, she was left clueless on how to act and where to start. She didn't want to join an organization for alcoholics and didn't want to call her long-lost friends and tell them they were right. Her pride got in the way- and she was too stubborn to admit that she was wrong and that she needed help.
Events like these occur daily. The wise Teiresias observes, "Think: all men make mistakes, but a good man yields when he knows his course is wrong, and repairs the evil: the only crime is pride." Although sometimes other ideas such as wealth and family may seem to keep a man off course, the majority of the time- pride is the only sin.
Likewise, in Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman, the main character Willy Loman lives his life in a dream. He has worked for the Wagner Company for many years, but now is unfortunately unable to pay the bills.
