Choices

Brent’s Choices

There is going to be a lot of choices that you will have to make throughout your life. Some of the choices you make are probably going to be mistakes, but you learn from your mistakes and that is part of life. You are also going to make some really good choices, which will lead only to good things for yourself. Some of the choices you make will define who you are and that, is also part of life. 

In the book The Burn Journals Brent is faced with a lot of choices that he has to make in order to become an adult. The song Choices by George Jones talks about choices, obviously. He tells us that he has "had choices since the day he was born" Brent likewise has had to make a lot of decisions since he was born, and lots of little mistakes and little decisions make him do something terrible and this choice that he makes, he regrets during the whole book, during his whole life.

"There were voices

That told me right from wrong

If I had listened

No I wouldn't be here today

Living and dying"

This specific part of the song shows us that he has also had a lot of influence in his life and that he understands the concepts of right and wrong. He understands that if he had listened to the persons that where trying to guide him, he wouldn’t be in the position that he is in today. This is in some ways, what Brent is feeling today, he really had no mayor reason to make the decision that he made that day he decided to burn himself, and today he is in a lot of pain because of that. He doesn’t want to be in pain and this is why Brent tries to remind himself what it is like to be happy so that when “he gets home, he wont try to hurt himself again” page 90 he doesn’t want to keep hurting.

He has made wrong decisions in the past this is why when he is happy it is very unnatural. He is not used to being happy. He has been unhappy for a very long period of time because of his mistakes. “I don’t think I’ve ever been this happy” says Brent in page 95 when he is laying on his bed just staring at the pictures of his friends and family in the walls.

Every day you are going to be faced with choices. Whether or not to do your homework, whether or not to go to the party instead of staying home, whether or not lie to you parents. It’s the decision you make about those choices that make you who you are.