Would you go walking into the wild to try to live off the land by yourself? Many people wouldn’t even think about going out by themselves sometimes even to another state. Christopher Mccandless took many poor decisions that cost him his life one way or another. Going out into the wild and taking the trail McCandless took can be good and bad in many way both mentally and physically.
One can say that Christopher had his life set out for him, but threw it all away when he decided to live life on the road. Everyone expected great things to come out of Chris, but no one could predict what he was going to do with his life after he decided to go hiking in Alaska all by himself. “What no one knew- was that he would shortly donate all the money in his college fund to Oxfam America, a charity dedicated to fighting hunger”. By doing this, it shows that Chris wanted to start life all over again, as he was probably not happy with the expectations that were set upon him as his life was at the moment. In the process of this, he changes his name to Alex and it is difficult for his family to find him. We all have those moments where the pressure and expectations can be too much for us and we want time to just stop and press the reset button.
McCandless chooses to live life on the road and with that brings maturity and an independence role that he has to fit into. Throughout his travels, Chris encounters people who question his decisions and in one encounter with Ron, Chris tells him, “ Look Mr. Franz, you don’t need to worry about me I am not destitute, I am living this like this by choice”. No matter how many people try to change his mind, he makes it clear that it is his decision to be living on the road and he’s giving off the impression that he will die living on the road, which oddly enough comes true. By going through with his decisions, it portrays Chris’s maturity that he has fulfilled. Like Chris, we all have to make our own decisions sooner or later, for most of us that comes with the decision if we want to go to college or to go straight into the workforce. Most likely than not, it is hard to retrace your steps and take the other path once the first one does not work out.
Chris goes on to tell Ron that “you should make a radical change in your lifestyle and begin to boldly do things.” This seems to be the basis of which Chris cames to terms with and decided to live his life that way. He chose to forget about everything he had and start all over, he would have nobody to turn to in moments of desperation; he would only have himself, that would ultimately become the biggest disadvantage for him, trying to do it all on his own. That is the decision he came to, he wanted to control his own life and he got to do that by living his life on the road; no one could tell him what to do and what not to do.
At the end of the day, living one’s life on the road is a personal decision. If you are ambitious and willing to leave everything behind such as Chris did in his journey, then one should go for it. This advice is solely for those type of people as it requires you to start all over and earn everything once again. At the same time, this is bad advice because the fact of the matter is you are doing it by yourself, it is only yourself and you have no support. One has to have a great desire and self control to be able to pull that lifestyle. Are you willing to live your life on the road?
