Life's Labyrinth (looking for Alaska)

I am currently reading “Looking For Alaska” by John Green. While I was reading I came across a quote that really stuck out to me. “You spend your whole life stuck in the labyrinth, thinking about how you’ll escape it one day, and how awesome it will be, and imagining that the future keeps going, but you never do it. You use the future to escape the present.” This is said by Alaska who is a girl at the boarding school that becomes friends with Miles. Miles is the protagonist and he comes from small town in Florida and comes to the boarding school in a hope of finding friends. He becomes friends with “The Colonel” and Alaska, and abuses his rules of no smoking, drinking etc. Alaska I think is a very interesting character and there is a lot of un-known about her, but I think she is a very smart person from all the experiences that she has gone through. When Alaska said this to Miles, it made me think about her as a person, and myself and how I can connect to this quote. It also made me able to understand what I’m dealing with a lot more and have a different view on things.

Alaska seems like a troublemaker and a person who is shallow, but learning more about her makes you realize how interesting of a character she really is. One thing that Alaska loves is books. Her room is full of books that she calls her Life’s Library. She refers to the Labyrinth, and Miles is confused, but at the same time interested at what it means. When Alaska says this quote, I realized that the labyrinth is her, she compares her personal life as a labyrinth. When I had this realization, a lot of things made sense to me. I understood why she was at the boarding school. I think she came here for an escape, but when she came she realized that she was still stuck in the maze. I think this was a point of realization for Alaska, and she realized that distance won’t determine if you have escaped the labyrinth, what will is how you work toward your goal in life and how you achieve that.

In the next part of the quote, Alaska refers to having a dream and waiting for it to come true. I think that this part of the quote is really though provoking. I think that what this quote means is that everyone has a dream, but a lot of times you wait for it to come true. And I think this is something that everyone can relate to and I think this is really smart. My favorite part of the whole quote is when Alaska says, “Imagining the future keeps on going. Using the future to escape the present.” I think that this really illustrates how many people imagine the future, but don’t realize they are living it, and one day you will realize that everything you thought was going to happen didn’t because you waited too long, and you used the future as an escape from the present. You always counted on the future instead of living the moment.

I can connect to this quote in so many ways. This quote is literally my life. Of course I have dreams of being someone that people will remember and big “superstar” dreams. And then you just give yourself a reality check, and say, wait everyone has a dream like you why you? And you just loose hope. I think that is the labyrinth in my life. I think another part of the labyrinth in my life is the problems and confusion that every teen faces sometime. I think that growing up is really hard, and dealing with your parents and family and friends and trying to keep good grades and also at the end of the day trying to find a way to help yourself is a lot to deal with. But at the same time, you have to accept that you have problems in your life and you can’t us excuses such as the future to escape your present.

I think that everyone has a labyrinth in their life and everyone has a issue that holds them back from something. I think that understanding that and accepting that makes someone a stronger person.