Let’s take a second to think about our lives up to this point. Do you believe that your life has purpose? Have you checked every single task off of your bucket list?  Is there anything that you wished you could have done but something was holding you back? Remember when you were a kid and a teacher asked you “what do you want to be when you grow up?” Do you remember what you said? It could have been as mainstream as a restaurant owner, or as imaginative as an astronaut. The point is that you shouldn’t let anyone hold you back from your true potential. Someone who fully believes in this idea is author Mary Oliver, who wrote numerous pieces about finding your passion. In the poem, “The Journey,” by Mary Oliver, stresses the idea that you should not let anyone hold you back from your true potential through imagery, rhythm, and by using the reader. 

Oliver emphasizes that people should find their calling in life in a number of ways. First, Oliver uses imagery to further demonstrate her point of view. She states that “it was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road [was] full of fallen branches and stones.” Oliver uses imagery to allow the reader to visualize the fallen branches and relate that back to how people might have held them back in their life. And how every time someone held you back, those “branches” piled up and the pile got bigger and bigger. By stating this, Oliver believes that you should leave “their voices behind,” in which, “the stars beg[i]n to burn through the sheets of clouds.” Even though it might be very difficult, once you find your voice, a whole new life will be made for you. A life that is beautiful and prosperous.

Secondly, a sense of rhythm is used to remind the reader of the larger message. Oliver starts out the poem by saying “One day you finally knew what you had to do.” The purpose of that sentence is that you finally realized that you found you calling in life is. And that you decided that you will not let anyone hold you back from your dreams. Later in the poem, Oliver reiterates that “you knew what you had to do.” By saying this again brings the attention of the reader back to the main point that you can’t let anyone hold you back from your true potential. Lastly, Oliver ends the poem by restating that you are “determined to do the only thing you could do.” Oliver purposely puts this sentence at the beginning, middle, and end in order to engrave the idea that you should be determined to follow your true calling in life. And that you shouldn’t let anyone hold you back from your dreams.           

The last way that Oliver used to accentuate her point is by relating the main ideas back to the reader. Oliver says that “you knew what you had to do.” Oliver makes a personal connection with the reader in order for a better understanding of the poem. Oliver states that once you find your calling, you will find a new voice, “which you slowly recognized as your own.” She believes that making the change to follow your passion by change your life drastically in a magnificent way. After years of not following your passion, you are “determined to save the only life you could save.” The only person that is going to help you turn your life around is yourself. And the sooner you do that, the better your life will be.

Life is all about what you make it out to be. If you go to school and don’t participate in any activities, and you get a boring job, your life is going to be, you guessed it, boring. But if you go about life following your passion and fulfilling life to its true potential, you will live a great life. Life is all about what you put into it, which is exactly what Mary Oliver believes. Which is why she wrote the poem, “The Journey.” Oliver uses imagery, rhythm, and the use of the reader to encourage readers to follow their dreams. So let me ask you this, do you think you have lived your life to your true potential? If you said no, then you still have time to change your path. Even if your spent 40 years of your life not following your passion, you could still have another 40 happy and joyous years.    