The short story “New Directions” by Maya Angelou, talks about Maya’s grandmother, who used her resourcefulness and ingenuity to make a new living out of the existing resources they had. Annie, Maya's grandmother, divorced her husband and was left with little cash and their one-room house. To add on, she had two sons and she was an African American. With these resources, she first went grocery shopping, and bought meat and flour. She worked into the early morning, making meat pies. The next day, she went to the town cotton gin, and she sold the meat pies, freshly fried, for a nickel each, and sold the leftovers at the lumber mill for three cents each. Then, she switched the order. After a period of time, when she was sure people were dependent on her for meals, she set up her stall in the middle of the road where the two factory workers met. They each bought the meat pies, and slowly the business began expanding, turning it into a store, where many things were sold.
There is always another way of doing things, even though it seems like the future is dark, and you don’t want to go back to the past. When people find that their path is looking dark, they will need to “cut a new path”. And when people think that the path they cut is not good for them, they will also need to make a new path. People cannot let things happen to them. It must be the other way. When Annie was left with very little money, she couldn’t just let things happen to her. The only things that could happen to her was that she would slip into poverty, and with her two sons, she could have more work. This was unfavorable to her, so she decided that she would find a way to help herself. She went to the grocery stores, and bought ingredients for meat pies, which in turn lured out customers who wanted hot lunches in contrast to their cold bland ones. No matter what odds, people have to individually take action by themselves, and even though conditions can be difficult, people need to follow their heart in order to find their true meaning in life. Even in harrowing conditions, people need to find a way to endure, and use ingenuity and other resources to find a new way. When Annie was left with little money, she didn’t give up. Instead, she thinks outside of the box, and uses the little money she had left to make meat pies and sell them. When things are seemingly dark, people need to cut a new path for themselves and earn themselves a good future.
People should never give up, although the conditions might be grueling and hard to work with. In life, there are many difficulties, and because of difficulties, people need to grow stronger in order to resist the pain and keep going. Just because there are difficulties doesn’t mean people should give up. Annie was left with very little money, but she didn’t resign herself to her fate. Instead, she was tough, and she powered through it, using the little property she had to make a living out of it. This means that she was not weak, and did not let up easily. She, although having two sons, and not being fit for domestic work, decided that she was going to step off the road and blaze herself a new path to the future. When people meet obstacles, it is not an indication that they are weak. It is an indication that they are not strong enough, and thus need to be stronger. When Annie met this challenge of being poor and with two baby sons, she was not shaken by the sheer weight of this responsibility, but instead was able to keep her composure and start working. This business eventually worked out to be a successful business. Challenges are not a sign of weakness, but a sign that people can be stronger, and need to be.
Being resourceful is an important characteristic, as it allows people to think on their feet and react to sudden changes. Being resourceful is that people can make use of what is at hand, and use these things to make another situation more feasible. This can be used in thinking proactively, and thinking outside of the box. When Annie found herself with very low education and little money, she was able to react quickly, and make her business just in time to support her sons and herself. She carried two large weights by herself, so she could train herself to become capable of taking the food from the home to the roads between the cotton gin and lumber mill. She can think on her feet and be able to make use of the little money they had. Resourcefulness can help people do things quickly, even though there are constraints and obstacles. For example, people can maximize time by doing multiple things at once. Resourcefulness can also help leaders innovate and make new solutions to problems that are very serious and unpredicted. People can think outside of the box in order to make remedies to many problems. Being resourceful is a very important skill to have, as it can help people solve problems much more easily.
Through being resourceful, never giving up, and finding new ways to do things, Annie was able to conquer the problems in life caused by her divorce. Her resourcefulness made her able to think fast and use the little money she had to buy and sell meat pies, which made her have profit. From this profit, she could buy more supplies. Eventually the business expanded. Although this work was tiring, she never gave up on this business, as this was her only hope of supporting her family. If she hadn’t cut a path for herself, she would have been doing domestic work, and even worse, be on the streets, begging for money, just because she didn’t think outside of the box for a way to support herself through other means. This suggests that Annie was a very capable person. Even though life conditions can be hard, through resourcefulness, perseverance, and thinking outside of the box, people can endure these harsh conditions.
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