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As soon as I saw the writer of the essay, I immediately recognized the famous Canadian author Margaret Atwood. The essay is a speech that she gave to a class of graduating students from the University of Toronto in 1983. It was very compelling to read as it contained a mix of blunt honesty, but also sarcasm. Her writing is very easy to follow, and she makes many allusions to other pieces of literature, historical events and famous people. Overall, the essay is about attitude and how we can change it to achieve what we want in life. She states that many people recognize that there are changes that need to be made in the world but lack the will to actually do something about it. I think that statement holds a lot of truth, as a lot of people don’t take a step to invoke change because they believe that someone else will or that their effort won’t make a difference. If everybody thinks in that way, nothing will ever be done about anything. In Margaret Atwood’s blatant honesty, she portrays the world as a place that is cruel and sometimes horrible. She implies that everything wrong with the world is of human creation and that we have the technology to make things right. In There Will Come Soft Rains, the people in that society lived in their own little bubble accommodated by their tech until human’s very own invention destroyed them. The point that Ray Bradbury and Margaret Atwood are trying to make are similar: humans build and consume, but they never stop to think about the effect their actions can have on the world they live on. The similarity really resonated with me when, while talking about the end of the human race, she states: “If it occurs, we can die with the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the death of the world was a man-made and therefore preventable event, and that the failure to prevent it was a failure of human will.” The subjects she talks about in her essay are difficult to hear, but she ends it off on a powerful message: “You may not be able to alter reality, but you can alter your attitude towards it, and this, paradoxically, alters reality. Try it and see.” This illustrates her main point about how we lack the will to invoke change, but one day, if we all realize our own impact on the Earth, we can eventually right the wrongs that human race has committed.