Determination Makes the Difference. What is Determination Essay Example

📌Category: Life, Myself
📌Words: 592
📌Pages: 3
📌Published: 21 March 2021

A double dose of determination may be the difference between success or failure and possibly, life or death. We typically drown ourselves in regret when we leave something undone, or untried. It is rarely our attempt or persistence that leaves us with this dreadful, irreversible feeling. On October 6th, 2020, Holly Courtier began her hiking journey in Utah, unknowingly followed by a monster who would try to convince Holly to throw away all determination from her when she needed it the most. Before then, she would admire the golden leaves decking the trees whose trunks would soon take the place of a calendar, to mark the days that passed by. 

In need of rest, Holly set up a hammock a few hours into the hike. While laying down in the hammock her head hit one of the trees the hammock was tied to. A sudden pounding sensation grew in her head, similar to the pounding I felt in my forearms after I reached the halfway mark of a hard climbing route. The rough tune of blood pumping in my forearms swept into Holly’s head and became a jumble of incoherent notes as she became disoriented. Holly had fasted for a few days before the hike, and thus, the lack of food and her concussion left her in a weakened state. She was like a balloon, given to a child half-deflated, only to be accidentally popped minutes later. Unable to stand and with no access to food or uncontaminated water, the refreshing hiking trip turned into a fight for survival within hours.  

The hesitation in my breaths and the pain turning to numbness in my arms distract me from deciding on my next move. Sweat acts as my monster on the wall as it loosens my grip on the holds that determine my success on the climb. While keeping my hands dry gives me an advantage in climbing, over a week later, Holly mumbled in prayer to a God she never thought to pray to before, asking for water, or for anything that would pause the unbearable sensation of extreme thirst. As she slowly blinked, the monster that had followed her opened its deceiving arms that looked like comfort and peace to a disoriented woman but yelled death to everyone who couldn’t find her. Despite the urge to give up, Holly put the little energy left in her into opening a sharpie pen, one of the few things she had. Letting the force of gravity do most of the work, she marked the trunk of the tree beside her with its 11th tick mark. Eleven days without water or food. She had dismissed the monster. She was going to fight. 

Although I knew I could fall and let my harness catch me and my pain too, the fire that burned in my muscles was not worth giving up quite yet. I reached for a risky hold, a small and far one, and immediately put every last effort into the last six moves. I reached for the last hold and found out it was a jug, the best of all holds. That same relief and contentment I felt when I finished the climbing route lifted Holly out of the waters of pure exhaustion and pain that she had been sinking in when she was found. With a mouth so dry she couldn’t open it, she still pushed through. Even with the inability to walk, she still pushed through. The determination to survive despite the severity of pain and discomfort is the reason she is alive. At the end of the day, the comfort she might have experienced falling into the arms of the monster that would only cause regret, as they guaranteed death, doesn’t compare to the opportunities she now has with the rest of her life ahead.

 

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