Identity Shaping Experience

One experience that has shaped my identity would have to be reading On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I read this book during my Senior year of High School after doing some independent research on the storyline, author, and beatnik movement. It took me roughly a month to get through the story. This is longer than it would normally take me but I was so interested in the book and Kerouac that I made sure to notice every little detail within the writing. The story of the book changed the way I viewed life and the importance of different aspects of it. Before reading the story I had a tendency to get a little wound up over matters that didn't call for that type of fretting. After reading the story I looked at everything a little more open-ended. If ever there was a line to summarize this story it would be the classic: Life is about the journey, not the destination. I learned to appreciate things important to me and ignore the rest of the commercialized, fabrications being fed to me. Life is too short to get caught up in the plasticities of the world. On the Road taught me to be true to myself and to take note of the world around me more carefully.