141 AD It is sometimes said that borrowing money from a friend can harm or damage the friendship. Do you agree? Why or why not? Use reasons and specific examples to your answer.

I don’t think it’s a very good idea to borrow money from a friend. It can cause resentment and awkwardness in the relationship. How do you approach your friend without making him feel he has to do this for you? It’s unlikely he’ll feel as if he can turn you down. Can be turn you down without insulting you? Probably not.

How do you know whether your friend can afford to lend you the money? He may be embarrassed to admit he’s a little short of funds himself. Or he might not want to disappoint you. So he lends you the money and then he needs money, too.

There’s also the question of when you’ll pay back the loan. It’s awkward for your friend to ask for a deadline for repayment. Besides, if you’re short of funds, you may not be able to predict when you’ll pay him back. What about interest on the loan? If it’s a small amount of money, this doesn’t matter. However, if large funds are involved, and you won’t be paying it back for a while, should you offer to pay interest? Should your friend ask you to pay interest? All these issues can result in hurt feelings and can harm the friendship.

It’s possible, of course, that if you borrow money from a friend and pay it back in a timely fashion, this will create a special bond between the two of you. You’ll know that you can count on your friend when you need help. He’ll know you’re trustworthy.

However, more often than not, money issues between friends are an embarrassment. If you need money, it’ s better to go to a bank for a loan.

142 EX Every generation of people is different in important ways. How is your generation different from your parents’ generation? Use specific reasons and examples to explain your answer.

The principal differences between my generation and my parents’ generation are in how they relate to others. My generation is more tolerant of other people’s choices, less concerned about what others think, and more self-centered.

My parents’ generation has stricter standards about what kinds of behavior are acceptable. They sometimes have a hard time accepting the fact that other people may have different ideas about what’s right and what’s wrong. My generation thinks people should have a lot of choices. For example, they choose whom they want to live with, whether or not to have children, whether or not to practice a particular religion, and what to do for a living.

My parents’ generation is much more concerned about what other people think of them. Many grew up in tightly knit communities where people knew each other’s families. Filling in meant that you had to act a certain way. Many of my generation grew up in loosely knit communities, where we only knew about our closest neighbors. We didn’t care what the rest of the community thought of us. Also, we were a very rebellious generation and often did thing just to shock people.

Wherever we grew up, most of my generation didn’t have to worry about having enough to eat or a roof over our heads. My parents’ generation did. They grew up during the Great Depression, when many people were poor. For this reason, my parents didn’t have time to analyze their feelings or think about their inner selves. They were too busy trying to get by. Children of my generation were well taken care of by their parents. Because of that, we had time to think about ourselves and our place in the universe. As adults, many of us have continued to be self-absorbed. We join health clubs to be prefect in body and go into therapy to be perfect in mind.

When I think about our actions, it seems that my parents’ generation is more “outer” directed and my generation is more “inner directed.”