October 9, 2018
By Elizabeth Zhang
Has someone in your life ever told you to eat your vegetables during meals? Being told to do something you don’t want to do gets really annoying, doesn’t it?
That’s exactly how Chris McCandless, the protagonist of Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild, feels before he leaves his life behind to exploring the wild. McCandless is your average college student—he has decent grades, participates in after school activities and has a nice family.
McCandless is talented. However, once being told to obey specific rules associated with each hobby, he comes to a “talent wall” and quits. He doesn’t appreciate societal standards and gets bored quite easily. So, one day, he decides to pack up his things and leave civilization altogether, following his dream.
What’s your dream? Please don’t say it’s to get into a “good” college. To get deeper into this question, food is the best analogy.
In the book, Into the Wild, the author writes down a quote that McCandless himself records in his diary: “I sat at a table where rich food and wine in abundance… but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board.”
When I read this, I could connect it back to my own life. Lexington High School is a great school that provides its students with a top notch education. We have some of the best opportunities in the world, but to me, it’s getting stale. Maybe we’re so busy trying to stuff it all into our bodies that we don’t even pay attention to its blandness. Most students here eat the same meal: we want to go to college, get a job and live the happiest life we can.
If we reach for another dish that we truly love, then I think our lives can be better . Yes, I know it’s easier to just take what’s given to us on our plates. Maybe your parents are watching you eat it, or even worse, force-feeding it to you. But, just go and eat that other dish you really want to eat. And if you find that dish to be boring after a while, well, go find another one!
Life necessitates exploration. I think a lot of people in society have morphed that thinking into ideas of "but if I don't do this, I won’t be happy!” or “but if I want to be happy, I can’t just go and explore things—what if I get nowhere!”. That’s exactly why you need to explore with a purpose. Take your time to deduce the flavors and ingredients of all your options rather than just mindlessly gulping down what’s right in front of you.
So, what’s your dream? What can you do to be yourself and do the things you want to do? Things will work out in the end. Believe it or not, you were born into this world for a reason. You sit at a table with opportunity in front of you; if only you’d reach out and grasp it.
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