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“People who cannot suffer can never grow up, can never discover who they are.” -James Baldwin- Baldwin makes the above statement in his essay, “The Fire Next Time.” By saying this he implies that unless you allow yourself to be influenced by your surroundings, you will never improve who you are. If someone else always is given responsibility for your actions, then you do not fully understand the consequences and can never grow as a person. A person is guided through by life the experiences of his or her past and can only make judgments based upon those past actions if they know the outcome of those past actions. If one has never had to deal with the outcomes of personal actions because that person has always placed blame or responsibility on another individual, this person will not always make the correct, responsible decision. This can often lead to outcomes that this person will ultimately blame on another individual. This often causes a lack of personal growth, which can result in an individual thinking that no matter what he or she does, it is never wrong and if the outcome was not what they expected, it was caused by the interference of someone else. This lack of personal growth is what Baldwin is re