What Gary Paulson's Hatchet Taught Me About Being Prepared by Daniel

What Gary Paulson's Hatchet Taught Me About Being Prepared by Daniel - June 2022 Scholarship Essay

When I was very young, my parents and teachers always saw me as naturally bright and inquisitive, but I was a little bit of a knucklehead. I usually found myself failing to be attentive to directions, my mind wandering in all different directions. As a result, I often lacked awareness of my surroundings and had trouble keeping track of all the things I needed. This frequently got me into big trouble, but at the time I didn't know how to change my behavior to address all these problems. Reading Gary Paulson's book, "Hatchet", changed all of that.

"Hatchet" is a simple, short read. It tells the story of a boy named Brian Robeson who gets lost in the wilderness with nothing to protect himself but his eponymous tool. Starting out, he's a lot like I used to be: bookish and smart, but unfocused and undisciplined. In order to survive in the wild, he has to learn a ton of valuable lessons the hard way, through trial and error. He learns how to plan ahead, for instance to stockpile firewood and food for storms and create protection for himself against the creatures of the night. He also learns to be more discerning and plugged in to the world around him. For instance, he learns how to parse out different sounds from the din of the forest and ascertain what each one belongs to. He learns how to differentiate between threats and potential opportunities. And finally, through it all, he gains self-confidence and self-sufficiency.

I was an avid, prolific reader in my childhood years. I read all sorts of books, from Asimov to Rowling. And yet I kept finding myself drawn back to this Hatchet book, which I would reread at least a couple times a year, hoping to soak up every insight I could. Why?

The odds that I would ever find myself in a survival situation like Brian Robeson does in the book were and still remain near zero, but navigating the world is in some ways a kind of struggle for survival. It requires us, the navigators, to be aware of our surroundings and our place within them. We have to plan ahead all the time, whether it be for college or a mortgage. And we have to be prepared, otherwise we could find ourselves (metaphorically) lost in the woods. Reading that book changed my outlook on life, so that, like Brian, I can one day survive everything life throws at me.