Is life really like a box of chocolates? by Joaquin

Is life really like a box of chocolates? by Joaquin - August 2022 Scholarship Essay

According to the phrase “Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you’re gonna get”, life is akin to a box of chocolates due to its random nature, which is implied in the line “you never know what you’re gonna get”. And for the most part, I do agree that life can be pretty random and unpredictable, and that there are many times that I don’t know what I’m “gonna get” from the circumstances and choices that I make in life. But just because sometimes I have no idea what I’m gonna get doesn’t necessarily mean that I will always never know what I’m gonna get, right? And even if I don’t know what I’m gonna get, doesn’t that mean I at least know that I don’t know what I’m gonna get? Or put more simply, I know I’m at least getting something: I at least know I’m getting a piece of chocolate.

Now some may criticize me for my harsh psycho-analyzation (which, to be fair, I can’t really argue with) by saying that I’m missing the whole point of the quote: life is like a box of chocolates because the chocolates represent the choices we can make in life, which may be bitter or sweet depending on the chocolate itself, and that we never know what may happen from the chocolate we choose. And although a chocolate may look bitter or sweet (or like any other flavor for that matter) from the outside, we will never truly know what it will taste like until we take a bite. Plus, what we learn from our past chocolate experiences can help us choose more wisely the next chocolates we take. This interpretation is one I find to be quite beautiful, but I believe that more significance can be found by taking a further step back.

What we should be grateful for isn’t exactly what specific chocolates we have at our disposal in our own chocolate box, but the fact that we even have a box of chocolates at all. To be able to choose the chocolates we want to choose and explore their own unique flavors is something that should never be taken for granted, regardless of how unappetizing they may look initially. It is easy to compare the opportunities and resources we have compared to what others may have and feel sorry for ourselves, but this type of analysis only leaves us empty and confused, and makes us forget an amazing gift that all of us have been given: free will. To even have the opportunity to explore our own chocolates and share them with others is in and of itself a greater gift than any chocolate that anyone could ever have.

So even though life isn’t exactly like a box of chocolates, the ability to choose makes life even sweeter.