By Jessica C.

The poem Ulysses is about a man who wants adventure to the end of his life: he does not want to die at home in Ithaca. In this his goal is willing to leave his family once again to fulfill his destiny. Many people can relate to this feeling when they start to get older. Some refer to this realization as mid life crisis. People cure this by buying a fast car or a boat, something that makes them feel younger, but some need more than material goods to make them happy. For some, always educating themselves will give them a sense of adventure that they need. For example, elderly people take cooking lessons, or even computer lessons just to convince themselves that they are still capable of learning and expanding their minds.

Not all people strive for happiness and adventure before they die. Some are very apathetic and give up on the remainder of their lives. For some, this apathetic attitude is very understandable. If they are sick and are told that they are going to die, they might get depressed and will not care anymore about trying to stay alive or filling their lives with adventure, which is very sad.

There is also a different type of elderly person who enjoys the little things, like gardening. They are the people that feel that they have accomplished everything that they need to accomplish in their life, so it’s time to relax. The ending of a life depends on the individual. If they think, “I will drink like to the lees,” then that is what they will achieve in life. If they want to relax for the remainder of their lives, that’s understandable and satisfactory too. In short, people must make their lives as happiness and adventurous as they can. For all we know, we could die tomorrow; we do not have control over our destiny, but what we can do is take our lives and fill them with our goals and dreams, and make our time on earth useful and happy.