Literature and Life in Of Human Bondage

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Literature and Life in Of Human Bondage

In the novel Of Human Bondage, the reader comes across a truly magnificent quote on page 627. This quote is: "He had lived always in the future, and the present always, always had slipped through his fingers." In and of itself, this is a very powerful quote. However, it can be given even more power and significance if a person can relate this quote to their own life and experiences. I myself, after reading this quote, was instantly able to identify with it.

This quote describes the middle school years and my early high school years almost perfectly. Many nights I would find myself staying in, watching TV, doing one thing or another around my house. I would almost never leave the house and I had nothing that could even remotely be called a social life. My reason for doing this to myself was that I spent most of my time thinking about my future and wishing for it to come. I had almost no kind of happiness for where I was or what I was doing in the present. I cut myself off from the outside world. I was rather shy around other people (I still am, admittedly) and I had very few friends.

It was not too long before I discovered the faults in my erroneous living. I finally realized, and truly not a moment too soon, that if I did not start living for the present, my future would soon become my neglected present. I would have wasted my life doing meaningless things and I would have no experience to share with anyone who may be interested in the uneventful life I had led. After I came to this startling revelation, I grew even more apathetic in my depression. I truly felt that there was nothing I could do to remedy this situation and was at a total loss for solutions. Soon enough, though, I concluded that there was no alternative to hard work to change the current state of affairs in my life. It was then that I truly embarked on the most difficult journey of my life thus far. This being the journey of self-alteration and successfully changing my own behavioral patterns.

My changes that I've done to myself have been quite noticeable to those people who've known me for a great number of years.

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