Into The Wild by Jon Krakauer | Book Review & The 7 Powerful Life Lessons | HappinessDhaba

It’s not always necessary to be strong, but to feel strong.

️This book is based on the life of Chris McCandless. He was a young man who was deeply intrigued by an itinerant lifestyle and hence wanted to get away from the conventional one.

After completing his graduation, Chris McCandless broke free from the establishment and went on carving his own path. To begin with, he destroyed all his worldly documents, donated his savings, emancipated from his family, and embarked on his journey Into the Alaskan wild.

4 months later, in a dramatic turn of events, his body was discovered by the hunters.

Trust me, this travel account will give you a new perspective on life.
Almost every page has a life-changing message on offer.

Life-changing lessons from the life of Chris McCandless:-

1: Happiness [is] only real when Shared:

It taught me that deft balancing is required between Isolation and Indulgence. In the words of Chris, “Happiness is only real when shared“.

Chris McCandless was reading the book Doctor Zhivago by ‎Boris Pasternak, in which he had underlined several passages and scribbled his thoughts in empty spaces.

Next to the following paragraph,

And so it turned out that only a life similar to the life of those around us, merging with it without a ripple, is genuine life, and that an unshared happiness is not happiness

He had noted, “Happiness is only real when shared”

And that’s so true, we humans are social animals, we cannot live alone. No matter we are an introvert or an extrovert we all seek attention to some extent. We are not machines who can work continuously without being complimented.

Also, we need to share our feelings. Without sharing, our successes and failures are meaningless. 

Trust me, this is one of the best things anyone can teach you. 

2: Confidence is good but should be accompanied by Rationalism:

We all know, there is a fine line between bravery and foolishness. We may be lucky enough once to succeed in achieving something difficult without training. But that will not happen always.

And when our life is at stake, we cannot let the equations of probability determine our chances of survival.

So one of the important lessons from this book for me is, Confidence without Rationalism is utter foolishness.  Though I agree that exceptions are always there but again when our life is at stake we cannot rely on exceptions for survival.

3: We are here to Live not to Leave:

 No one’s life is perfect. There are problems in everyone’s life. And these problems are in fact the stepping stones to our growth. We will head nowhere running away from them.

Life is to be lived not to be escaped. Though we all need Temporary escapes every now and then to renew ourselves but such cutting-off from society forever is something that can get intolerable in the long run, something we all have experienced in these quarantine times.

We all need to cultivate the courage to accept things as they are and channelize our actions towards correcting them instead of searching for an escape.

4: Beauty Lies all around Us:

In the words of Chris Mccandless,

You are wrong if you think Joy emanates only or principally from human relationships. God has placed it all around us. It is in everything and anything we might experience. We just have to have the courage to turn against our habitual lifestyle and engage in unconventional living

These words clearly prove that Chris McCandless was not a common man, he was an intellectual with strong feelings. An intellectual who tried hard to make sense of this world.

Also Read: 9 Books Chris McCandless Took on His Journey ― Into The Wild

5: Humans Love New Experiences:

In Chris Mcclandess’ words,

So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservatism, all of which may appear to give one peace of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future.

The human spirit loves new experiences. But the society we live in conditions us towards believing that a life of security, conformity, and conservatism gives us peace of mind which was not at all acceptable to Chris as is evident from the quoted words above.

And why should it be?

We, humans, have come this far only because of our zeal for new experiences. 

One of the biggest problems humans face today is mental health issues. And trust me, one of the major reasons behind it is the trap of monotonous life we get into in greed of a stable life.

In the words of Chris McCandless, “The core of man’s spirit comes from new experiences“

Also Read: A Quest That Began with The Alchemist & Found Respite in The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck  

6: Say Yes and then Do whatever You want to:

From whatever I read in the book, about Chris McCandless, I can make out he didn’t believe in arguing and that is one of the qualities we all should try inculcating in our lives. We can’t waste our precious energy and time arguing.

In the words of Robert Downey Jr.

Listen, smile, agree, and then do whatever the f*ck you were gonna do anyway.

Trust me, this has saved me a lot of energy.

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7: Embrace the Unpredictable Nature of Life:

If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, then the possibility of life is destroyed ~ Leo Tolstoy

We apply all sorts of logical theories in explaining why we will fail. But in reality, we all know that no matter how profound our logic is, we cannot predict the future with 100% accuracy. Because life doesn’t follow a fixed pattern or contour.

So, all we can do is do justice to our role by leaving no stone unturned in our actions. and let life unfold in the way it chooses to.

Also Read: 9 Books Chris McCandless Took on His Journey ― Into The Wild

I hope you loved reading the review and enjoyed the lessons. It’s my suggestion to all of you to read the book “Into the Wild” by Jon Krakauer or watch the movie based on this book.

Being a book lover myself, I would recommend reading the book first. John Krakauer has beautifully cemented together the voyage of this extraordinary young man.

Grab your copy here from Amazon.in | Amazon.com

It’s one of those books that will stay with me forever.

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That’s all we have for today. Thanks a lot for tuning in to HappinessDhaba. Do let us know your views on this in the comment section.

Signing off with my favorite words.

Zindagi Zindabad!