No Path Is The Right Path by Samantha

No Path Is The Right Path by Samantha - May 2017 Scholarship Essay

Hope.
That is the only thing that can get you through this world. The feeling of hope that one day you will embrace the love, acceptance, success, and life that every man and woman on this earth should have. Before I turned eighteen years old, I did not know much about genuine feelings of hope. Hope is so much more than a feeling; it is a way of living. Being hopeful requires an attitude, and that is something that Cormac McCarthy taught me in his novel, The Road.
Cormac McCarthy introduces influential life lessons as he tells the story of a man and a boy who bare the challenges of surviving in a post-apocalyptic world. This gruesome, yet thoughtful novel has taught me more about what it means to be hopeful than anything I have ever come across.
In The Road, the boy and the man are what seem to be the only two “good” guys left. They continue to push through the freezing snow to reach a destination they are not sure even exists. For them, hope is about “carrying the fire,” as McCarthy puts it. There is something inside of them two that no one else exemplifies. The man and the boy are put into a world full of loneliness, heartache, and for many, lost hope, and somehow they make it through.
What makes this novel so important to me is the fact that it highlights that no path is going to be the right path. One simply has to take a chance and find hope in every situation they are given to make it the right path. The man and the boy walk through a broken world that is completely changed from the lands they once knew. Despite this fact, they find good in most challenges they face. Going into the “real world” as everyone says is quite a frightening step in many people’s lives, especially mine. Fresh out of childhood, I do not know what is going to be ahead for me. It is a clean slate, a new start, yet there are so many factors that can guide me in the wrong direction.
I would like to think I would have the mentality of the boy when I am in college. He truly is the epitome of hope. The post-apocalyptic world is all that the boy has ever known. He is scared that him and his father are going to die from the cold or from starvation, but he still remains hopeful. The boy tries to find good in every person he comes across. I think part of his hopeful mentality is because of his youthful aspects. He has such a life ahead of him that he can only remain hopeful.
This book really has helped me prepare for college. I have realized that there are going to be times where I will end up in a sticky situation, but I cannot give up. I will fail. I will burn out all of my cash. I will miss home, but I cannot let these things stop me from reaching my dreams. It is my hope that one day I will become a nurse and be able to help save people’s lives everyday, and to reach this goal; I have to remain positive throughout my studies.
To achieve this attitude that comes along with being hopeful, I have to make any path the right path. Like the man and the boy, I must keep trailing on no matter what life throws at me. If life gives you lemons, you make lemonade. Hope is living through a dreadful situation and finding the good in the things that thrown at you to make the best out of a crummy situation.
The Road has impacted me in more ways than one. I often think to myself, “what would the boy do?” and keep my optimistic composure as I remain hopeful. Even though things may not be all right today, I know that they soon will be.