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Copy and Paste


When computers and word processors came out, the copy and paste feature became a super handy way to move information from one document to another on a computer. It can allow you to move through data at a much faster rate. When I was in high-school, my mother bought a Tandy Computer from Radio Shack. The latest technology from the electronics leader.

When it came time for my senior year, applications were filled out by hand. College applications were filled out on a typewriter, while carefully making sure no mistakes were made. Thank you letters were made out by hand to buyers of animals at county shows. You had to know how to write with a pen and paper.

Technological advances are good. I am a big fan and believer in forward progress. What I am not a fan of is making it easy just because you don’t want to do the work. Seniors in high-school should have to sit down at a table and fill out applications for scholarships if there are multiple you can use the same information for, great, that is why it is copy and paste. There is a discipline there that needs to be learned.

In the real world and work at an actual job, there will be plenty of times when you will use the same information for multiple documents. You will answer questions the same in many emails. The problem is, if you only produce the same information over and over again, where is your originality for yourself? At what point do you lose your identity as a person? Where are the ideas that are changing the world? 

If you are going to go through life and just copy and paste your last idea without improving on the next one, you won’t get far in life. An essay to the lions club on why you deserve a scholarship should be different than to the historical society. 

As humans we tend to want to group things together because it makes it easy. Oh that is the ag kids, they are just shit kickers. Oh that is the band kids, oh that is the drama club, or that is the honor society. The problem is, one kid can belong to all those groups. They have a vast knowledge base and talents. If you stifle that on the simple things in life, you will stifle those opinions on the big stuff too. 

It is ironic that in today’s society where people are screaming to be individuals, they all end up wanting to copy and paste others. Lip synching another’s song on tiktok that 1000s of others have already done. There are 1000s of opportunities to be yourself, tell the truth, and not copy another person. Be the best you can in each of those opportunities in this copy and paste society. 

“In a copy and paste society, look for the individuals that shine their own light and stand out from the crowd.” – Jeremy Workman 

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