The happiness level of a person can determine how successful they are. I can’t imagine someone being successful without being happy or satisfied with life. It just seems contradictory for someone to not be happy and successful simultaneously. From the book, “Into the Wild,” by Jon Kraukauer, the main character, Chris McCandless, graduated college from Emory University and his parents were very proud of him. Although Chris’ parents were happy for his achievement, Chris’ thoughts and feelings didn’t mirror theirs. Having a college degree didn’t matter to him as much as it did to his parents. McCandless felt like he was being held back from the authority of his parents from pursuing his true dream. Because I mentioned that success is defined by the individual, success is what a person naturally wants and most individuals strive to be happy. People crave for happiness, but that isn’t achieved until they are successful in something. It can be as simple as beating a level in candy crush, getting an A in an exam, or winning the lotto.
Not only will there be struggles when aiming to be successful, there will definitely be failures along the journey. Failing is normal and everyone goes through it. It’s a part of life. One day McCandless was hunting for meat and spotted a moose. He shot it, killed it, took it apart, and tried to preserve it. The problem was, he only learned to preserve the meat outdoors at South Dakota, so using that technique failed him at Alaska. Maggots surrounded the moose preserves. On that day, McCandless wrote in his journal, “I now wish I had never shot the moose. One of the greatest tragedies of my life,” (167). Failing is not necessarily a negative state, but it all depends on how you react to failure. The best way to respond to failure is by accepting the failure, examine what when wrong, and learn from. Being positive during negative times, can make a difference. The next day McCandless noted, “henceforth will learn to accept my errors, however great they be,” (167). I’m sure McCandless was very upset about all the meat that could have lasted him for a few weeks. It probably felt like a tease to McCandless when he knew he caught the moose. It must have been one of the best days of his life, until the maggots appeared. It was a struggle for McCandless to take the moose apart because it lasted him a whole day to take care of. The struggle of taking the moose apart was going to be rewarding in the end, but the struggle failed him leaving him with a bitter attitude for a moment. McCandless handles his situation positively by accepting the failure and moving on. And that kind of decision is what leads people to success.
Projecting
our future at a young age is vital to the outcome of our careers in life.
It may sound like a reiteration, but do we have enough children that have
projected futures? Many of us come into Chabot College not knowing our
majors yet. This is because we haven’t really put any quality time into
discovering what it is that we want to do. We are too distracted by
everything that doesn’t really matter. We are inspired by American
society to consume before we are inspired to get the best education. We
should have more billboards that encourage us to think about our future and
less billboards that encourage us to buy McDonalds. This goes for many
other aspects of society. The before-class topics seem to be more about
shoes and electronics rather than the subject at hand. Greed is a feed
for major corporations and we need to set our children aside from these distractions.
We need to focus on who we are on who it connects to who we are going to
be. Jon Krakauer said in his book about “…how important it is in life not
necessarily to be strong, but to feel strong… to measure yourself at least
once.” Krakauer also believes that it is important to measure ourselves
at least once! If not multiple times, like we should. Measuring
oneself is knowing oneself and projecting your future from who you are.
Otherwise we will be thrown around by our society which demands us to do
different things which are not in our futures favor. It is important to
know our true identity so that we will know where we stand and what really
affects how we think. Even though there are negative things in society
that affect us, there are also positive things. These ositive things
include family, friends, and God whom push us in many ways through words and
favors to be thankful for.
It is important for a student to be thankful for something that will drive them
to continue their studies. Or drive them to do anything for that
matter. Anyone who can find nothing to be thankful for, often seem to
complain. I am personally thankful that my parents are providing for me
at the moment. This is one thing, among others, that drives me to make
them proud. Being thankful gives us a push to fulfill what we are
thankful for. The people who we are thankful too, often do us the favors
for a reason. Whether it be our parents supporting us as we finish school
or the belief in God to fulfill what we believe that he wants. Favors,
like these, require thanks and fulfillment. Jon Krakauer shows his
gratitude to the almighty by saying that “It is the experiences, the memories,
the great triumphant joy of living to the fullest extent in which real meanings
is found. God it’s great to be alive! Thank you. Thank you.” He
owes and gives thanks unto his God. From being thankful, he is driven to
accomplish many things in life, including the completion of his book, Into the
Wild.
Some obstacles are necessary to provide us with new and challenging
experiences. To get through it all, we need to grow mental strength and
power to overcome these obstacles. Striving through the tough classes are
hard as well, but going through these tough times gives us more experience in
order to become more tolerant to whatever, life, throws at us. Jon
Krakauer states that “The core of mans’ spirit comes from new
experiences”. Education is important for this matter. We are
challenged a lot in highschool or in college. We are challenged with
obstacles such as relationships and the toughest of tests. But through
these we learn to be more tolerant to the challenges in life and to face these
challenges head-on and overcome them. We learn to face the hardest
obstacles including global warming and economic depression through the
discipline we learn from school and the information that we get from it.
These challenges are the key to success and progression. If we accomplish
things that are too easy for our standards, we will never overcome real
challenges that help us grow. Jon Krakauer supports this by saying that
“according to the moral absolutism that characterizes McCandless’s beliefs, a
challenge in which a successful outcome is assured isn’t a challenge at all.”
We should challenge ourselves through education in order to find our true
selves. We also need to grow tolerance for the obstacles we will be
having as adults and through whatever career that we will be having.
Society will always have a role in our educational life. Many people get
into majors that aren’t even their first choice. The factors that change
our majors include: The pay rate in the career after graduation, the demand of
a major in the economy, or even how bored we might actually be if we were to be
in a certain career for the rest of our lives. When I was young I want to
become a cartoonist. But, as a young girl, I did not know of all the
other factors that effected my choice of major. I just thought it was
easy and fun. Jon Krakauer states that “it is easy, when you are young,
to believe that what you desire Is no less than what you deserve, to assume
that if you want something badly enough, it is you God-given right to have
it.” As a young girl, I had my eyes set on becoming a cartoonist.
Little did I know that I would have to pay bills and that there existed so much
competition in the world. Now that I am more aware, with still more
awareness to discover, I now have a major in the medical field. A major
in which, I “kind-of” will enjoy. A major in which I will “make that
money”. I am not going to be the cartoonist that I wanted to become when
I was a kid. I am thankful, however, of the choice I am making to become
an Occupational therapist who specializes with kids.
The truth is that everyone has it different and everyone has a different
view. Everyone has their own story that they can tell. Through
whichever path we take with our majors and through education, we will have to
overcome struggles and challenges unless we choose to give up. Reaching
success isn’t easy but it is a huge accomplishment that everyone should strive
for. Through the obstacles such as society and family problems we will
feel pressure. But through these pressures we learn to be more tolerant to
the challenges that we are to face within our futures. These futures do
not only involve our career. But it is through the pressures that we have
through our careers and education that we learn to become more patient for
things such as world problems. We become more patient to resolve these
world problems such as poverty and global warming. Even though society
encourages us more to buy Mcdonalds than project our futures, it is yet another
obstacles to overcome. We should help our young generation with the
projection of their futures so that they would not be led astray. We
should challenge ourselves in many ways in order to discover who we are and
compare it to who we are to become. We should find things to be thankful
for in order to be inspired by the people or organization that we thank.
Education is the future of us individuals and it is also the future of our
world as a whole. We can strive through the worlds’ obstacles together.
