Hey this is an Essay for my Senior Year of high school humanities class, I have – graduate researcher

Hey this is an Essay for my Senior Year of high school humanities class, I have the instructions and rubric also avaible if you need… the following is my rough draft/outline that I made for the paper maybe for you to build off or scrap if its not good haha. Thanks so much. Each main point needs to have quotes from walden on wheels to back it up
Thesis
In our busy schedules of schooling, education, and working towards a successful career, the vast majority of people on our planet will mindlessly go through the stages of life with little care or appreciation for their surroundings, and after they get that perfect score on their test, or the perfect college to accept them and the perfect career lined up, just to then find the perfect retirement community to spend the rest of their life in, those people will look back at their time spent on earth and realize they didn’t fully make use of what they could do. While society continually pushes you down this typical path of school, work, quiet retirement and eventually death, the true key to living a fully lived life means sometimes deviating from this long established path and living more vicariously and spontaneously. Many examples prove that individuals feel more fulfilled with an alternative lifestyle, even as far as lifestyles being classified by society as undesirable trending hiring in happiness, and while you should most definitely strive to live a more unorthodox lifestyle, you should also temper some of your reckless decisions with moderation and being sure not to take rejecting society to a too far extreme.
To live a life fully lived you need to understand how to secure freedom and move past the chain of conformity to live more true to yourself and not follow society.
Body
Main Point 1
: Walden on Wheels feels much more fulfilled living alternative lifestyle that is different from the typical mold of society
-Ken first follows the ordinary path in life working down his debt at a dead end job in home depot and is depressed, frustrated, and wishes he could do more with his life.
QUOTE BEING DEPRESSED AT HOME DEPOT
He had followed the conventional path up until this point and while he didnt do anything wrong in societies eyes, he was working hard towards a brighter future, he still had a hole inside his inner self, a craving that had not been quenched to explore the world and find some morcel of happiness that he had become so foreign to. Ken at this point in his life was most definitely near his lowest. He trudged through a miserable dead end job because society had drilled into him that it was the right and responsible thing to do. However, once he decides to break out of the rigid mold society pushed him into, he started to enjoy himself a little more, experience more and live a more full life.
-His life takes an immediate shift when he decides to live a little more against the grain, not always adhering to society’s strict rules… even when he is living frugally in a van on his campus he is more satisfied with his choices, and happy to be paying down his debt in an unconventional way.
Find quote about living in van unconventially
While these living accommodations are by no means conventional, it is because Ken was not afraid to break from the mold of ordinary society that he could balance doing crazy experiences over his summer break with also attending duke university. Ken wasnt afraid to live a starkly different lifestyle to his peers that allowed him to save up money for doing aid trips in louisiana and doing expeditions across the country frugally on shoestring budget
Quote about Ken doing voyage thing
Ken is evidently not afraid to break from the norm and try something new with his life. It is once he adapted this uncommon mindset that his life went from mundane and ordinary to enjoyable and even book-worthy.
-He also converses with his peers at Duke university and discovers that the students on the ordinary cookie cutter path society has made for them in life are not always happy and they aren’t fulfilled with their major and where they’re headed in life.
Find quote of students complaining about what their doing in life and they dont even know why
A lot of the peers Ken exchanges with at Duke are on the mainstream path society had decided for them in life. Many students have little to know attachment at all to what they are doing with their life, saying they aren’t even mildly interested in their major and they mostly study it so they can be guaranteed a well paying job in the future
Main Point 2:
People across the world living in what society defines as deplorable conditions are often more happy then individuals living in societies definition of success.
-In the happy documentary it doesn’t matter your background, statistics show poor countries are by and large more happy than successful ones, and the citizens in what is seen as disadvantaged backgrounds trend more happy.
-Chris McCandless in the call of the wild had societies definition of success handed to him at birth, but was not happy or content with this. In going out into the wilderness and living more barebones, he found true happiness living in what most would define as struggling to survive.
-Same with Siddartha he felt an irresistible urge to go out and explore the world and while he was first given what many would define as the perfect life it wasn’t until he went against societies grain and lived more abnormally that he felt true happiness in exploring the world and taking on what many would see as rough lifestyle like starving himself and whatnot to follow his true passion of being a ascetic.
Main point 3: While you should definitely deviate from the normal path in life slightly, you also need to understand to keep your lifestyle and balance and you shouldnt be too extreme in going against the grain.
-Some people take the notion of living free too far and twist up its true meaning to make their reckless and immature journeys seem well proven. If you go to far with going against the grain, you can meet your demise like McCandless and die young with regrets.
-Ken however in the novel Walden on Wheels demonstrates a little more reasonable balance between living free but still being smart about decisions and not being completely reckless.
– You dont need to go to extreme measures of rebelling against society to achieve happiness, rather you can just reject the conventional definition of success and be content and make the most out of your situation such as the impoverished people in the happiness documentary.
Main point 4: Cookie-cutter society lifestyle is a powerful force that encourages people to live a conforming, depressing lifestyle
-Society as a whole encourages you to conform countless people in chris mccandless life questioned his ways and called him psychotic for deviating from the ordinary path in life
-School and the typical ordinary lifestyle hold many people back in life and they are pigeon holed into something they don’t like doing