Re:Re:(목동김상철토플전문학원) 김혜빈 독립형 WT # It is just as important for older people

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예비대학생 김혜빈: It is just as important for older people to learn and study new things as for younger people to do so. Do you agree or disagree with the statement? Use specific reasons and details in your essay.

Over the past few decades, many people have been interested in learning and studying new things, even at an old age. So, it’s been argued whether it is just as important for older people to learn and study new things as for younger people to do so. Some people might argue that learning and studying new things is not important for older people as it is important for younger people because younger people learn and study in order to achieve very crucial goals. Meanwhile, others might disagree with it. However, I am deeply convinced that it is just as important  for elderly or middle-aged people to master new things as for the younger generation to do so. Actually, I have a couple of reasons to support my idea and will explain and develop them in the next following paragraphs below.

   First and foremost, learning and studying new things is important for older people, too because it both relieves their stress and gives new ideas for their main job.  Older people tend to have lesser opportunities to relieve their stress than younger people do so because most of them have been too busy or even unhealthy to learn new things. So, they tend to have a lot of stress piled up inside them. It is highly important for older people to relieve their stress because it could, otherwise, lead them to severe depression. Though it’s true that learning and studying new things is more important to younger people since they usually have a goal that influences their future wellbeing, discovering new interests is really important especially to older people who’ve been working hard for many years because they can use this not only to relieve stress but also to gain new ideas for their main job. To give an example of this, I once saw a documentary about Chef Grant Achatz. He is now an award-winning chef who owns a very expensive restaurant in the USA. In the documentary, he is just an ordinary cook in his middle ages. He cooks in a very small restaurant in a very small town, and he isn’t even famous. He later becomes extremely stressed about his life because his life is the same every day. Unlike younger people, he can’t leave his job to play or hang out with his friends frequently. He also is very unhealthy, so he couldn’t play any sports. So, one of his friends proposes him to learn and study art. He accepts the suggestion and goes to a small art class in town in his free time. Though many of the people in the art class are very young and study art very seriously, he, as a old man, studies it diligently, too. He also feels very relieved of stress whenever he goes to art galleries to observe various forms of art. Later, he discovers that cooking is just like art: an attraction. He realizes that food must look good and colorful in order to attract people to eat it. So, he opens his own restaurant and uses diverse colors and shapes to make new menus, and he becomes very popular. A few years later, he loses his sense of taste in a very serious car crash. However, he keeps on designing his food by drawing it very specifically and giving it to his assistant chefs to make. Today, he is one of the top cooks in the USA. It is obvious that he couldn’t have done it without learning and studying new things even at his old age. Therefore, learning and studying new things is as important for older people as it is for younger people.  

   Moreover, learning and studying new things is important for older people because they can have better social skills. Older people tend to have extreme pride and prejudice because they’ve only been absorbed in a few things such as work, family, and their personal life. So, older people have a tendency of having trouble socializing with different people such as the younger generation or people from distant places. However, learning and studying new things will open their eyes to diversity and to have better understanding enough to socialize well with others. Even though some might say that learning and studying new things might be more stressful to them, it is more enjoyable to older people than it is to younger people. To give an example of this, my grandfather used to avoid meeting people after he retired from his job. He had serious pride and prejudice because he didn’t want to meet people who were different from his field or personality. Also, whenever my younger cousins came over to his house, he felt sad because he couldn’t have a conversation with them, since he couldn’t understand the younger generation. However, his attitude changed when he was forced to go on a worldwide trip with a group of old people . He met a lot of different people during the travel, and came across various types of cultures. He also met a lot of fresh younger people during his travel. After his trip, he became a person who had more social skills. Though many thought older people would feel stressed to learn and study new things, it is actually more enjoyable to older people than it is to younger people. So, it is clear that it is just as important for older people to learn and study new things as for younger people to do so. (915)