The Martian: Overcoming Trials

Last week I saw the movie The Martian. The movie is about an astronaut who is stranded on Mars after he is separated from his team during a massive storm. The team assumes that Mark Watney is dead, and they decide to leave the planet. Realizing that it would take years before others could save him, Watney takes action to survive and make contact with NASA to help bring him home. The majority of the movie follows Watney’s attempts to grow food and scavenge parts of previous missions to survive. I found this movie both entertaining and inspiring. What impressed me the most was Watney’s proactive and positive attitude toward his situation. It would have been easy to get discouraged and give up hope trying to survive, but he immediately took action and found ways to be productive with his time. On top of it all, he still managed to keep a positive attitude and even find the humor in his situation. I think we can all learn from Mark Watney’s example. We will all be faced with different challenges during our lives that are out of our control, but we do have control over how we react to those situations. We can choose to get discouraged and give up hope, or we can choose to be proactive and make the best of our situation. In the end, it was his proactive attitude that saved Watney’s life. I hope that I can face challenges in my life with the same determination to overcome and still be happy in the process.