Receiving(or listening to) criticism is difficult. People easily believe in authority figures or politicians. Even if a citizen feels that their policy and behavior is wrong and strange. Some courageous citizen went above and beyond the call of duty and tried to advise a dictator, imploring the dictator to recognize his mistake. As a result, that remarkable citizen was punished and executed.
Now I’m scared not only of dictators but also ordinary people because I’ve read the book, “Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes–But Some Do”. It is an amazing book based on many facts and cites many examples.
I also got another related book when I finished reading it. It is titled, “Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine”. It is about Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s big failure in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It brought about death by starvation for over thirty million people. Zedong promised fertile land to the people, but as a result, the country’s agriculture and populace imploded. Nobody could provide aid to China at that time.
My thoughts became entirely confused and messy after reading those books. I want to know how to prevent the same mistakes, but the solution is not easy to find. Even if a person goes above and beyond the call of duty, it’s not necessarily good rewarded.
Remember, most people never learn from their mistakes. However, we ought not to give up from learning from history. I implore my friends to give me strict advice if I do something wrong.
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Before Revise
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A criticism is difficult. People easily believe an authority or politician. Even if a citizen feels that their policy and behavior is wrong and strange. Some courageous citizen tried to advise dictator above and beyond the call of duty③ because they had implored② dictator to recognized his mistake. As a result, that remarkable citizen was punished and executed.
Now I’m scared about not only a dictator but also ordinary people because I’ve read the book, “Black Box Thinking: Why Most People Never Learn from Their Mistakes–But Some Do”. It was an amazing book written by based on many facts and example.
Got more another related book when I finished reading it. That title is “Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine”. It was written about Chinese dictator Mao Zedong’s big failure in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It brought over thirty million hunger perished. The dictator promised fertile land to the people, but as a result, he completely imploded② the land and citizen. Nobody could aid save China at that time.
Entirely my thought became confusing and messy after reading those books. I want to know how to prevent same mistakes, but the solution is not easy to find. Even if the person will do good things above and beyond the call of duty③, it’s not necessarily good rewarded.
Remember most people never learn from their mistakes. However, we ought not to give up to learn from history. I implore① to my friends to give me strict advice if I did some wrong behavior.
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words to practice: ①implore, ②implode
expression to practice: ③above and beyond the call of duty
If a person does something which is above and beyond the call of duty, they show a greater degree of courage or effort than is usually required or expected in their job.
“The fire-fighter received a medal for his action which went above and beyond the call of duty.”