Krypton nights: man or superman

Reliance on Others as a Source of Weakness

In Bryan D. Dietrich's poem "Man or Superman" he suggests that people become weak when they rely on others to solve their problems. Dietrich's argument is that if people rely on others, they are not forced to rely on themselves and so they do not develop the ability to help themselves. A consideration of Dietrich's argument will show that his argument is valid.

The first important point is that for every problem that a person solves, they learn something that can be used to assist them in solving future problems. If a person does not have this opportunity to learn, then they do not gain the skills or abilities that can help them in future situations. It must also be noted that a person solving a problem is not a measure of what they learned by solving the problem. In short, if a person gets someone else to solve the problem, then it is not a learning experience for them. The definition of learning makes this distinction, with learning defined as "a relatively permanent change in behavior or behavior potentiality that results from experience" (Seamon & Kenrick 177). The most important point is that the change comes from experience. If a person relies on someone else to solve their problems, it is the person who solves the problem who has the experience, not the person with the problem. In this way, the person who solves the person learns, while the person with the problem does not. When the person has the problem again, they have not learned from the past experience and so still cannot solve the problem themselves. This explains why a person who does not solve their own problem becomes weaker, rather than stronger.

The next important point to note is that the learning experience is not just important because it helps a person deal with the same problem again. Instead, every learning experience can assist a person in dealing with future problems. This is true because a person gains something from every experience and these experience combine to form the person's knowledge and skills. When a new situation arises, a person can then use what they learned in past situations even if there were very different from the current one. Most importantly, a person can combine knowledge from various past situations to come up with a suitable solution to the current problem. This means that it is not necessary for a person to have experienced the exact same problem before. Instead, it is just necessary for the person to have experienced a few problems that share a similar characteristic. In addition, the more problems that a person has solved, the more knowledge and skills they will have to draw from. This makes it more likely that they will have appropriate knowledge to help them solve the current problem. In this way, the more that a person solves their own problems, the stronger they become. In contrast, the less that they solve their own problems, the weaker they become.

Another related point is that each problem solved also has an impact on a person's attitude. In short, every time that a person solves a problem, they will feel a sense of achievement and realize their own ability. This means that a person's confidence will grow. In the future when a person has a problem to solve, they will be more positive about finding a solution because their past experience has shown them that they can solve the problem themselves. They are also likely to recall the sense of achievement that came with solving the problem, with this becoming a motivating factor. In this way, a person becomes used to accepting challenges and considers each new problem as an opportunity to grow. The opposite happens if a person does not solve their own problem and relies on someone else to solve it. Instead of feeling confident and more prepared the next time a problem occurs, they will feel the same level of difficulty as the first time a problem occurred. In both cases, the person may feel that solving a problem is a challenge and may feel a level of anxiety about it. The major difference is whether or not a person faces the challenge. If they do, they work through the anxiety, with the person feeling less anxious and more confident in the future. If they do not face the challenge, the person will not gain and will feel just as anxious the next time. This means that the person never changes, develops, or grows in confidence. This will have an impact on all future problems regardless of their type and will make a person weaker, while solving the problem would have made them stronger.

It is also important to note that there are certain skills that will be gained in solving a problem that will help in all future problems. These are basic but essential skills such as critical thinking skills and decision making skills. For every problem that a person solves themselves, they will develop these skills and this will make them better prepared for future problems. In contrast, if a person relies on someone else to solve the problem, they will not gain these essential skills. In effect, a person is constantly avoiding the possibility of gaining these skills, especially considering that these are the types of practical skills that can only be gained from experience. This is another reason that relying on others makes people weak.

It is also useful to consider the issue by using the analogy of a person using their muscles. If a person uses their muscles, they will gain strength in those muscles. The same is equally true of a person's mental abilities. If the person uses these abilities, they will gain strength. It is also true that the more a person practices, the better they will become. In terms of solving problems, the more experience a person has solving problems, the better they become at tasks such as identifying alternatives, assessing alternatives, predicting outcomes, and identifying potential problems that might lead to a negative outcome. Becoming better at all of these types of tasks will help someone become a better problem solver. In this way, a person who is able to solve their problems naturally becomes better able to make the right decisions and to make the right decisions more easily. Returning to the analogy of a person using their muscles, someone who does no exercise would develop weaker muscles because of lack of use. The same applies to mental abilities, with a person not using their mental abilities losing them, rather than gaining them. This is one more way that a person who relies on others becomes weaker.