Oh. It's The Spell of the Yukon by Robert Service.
I think this relates to school. At the beginning, Service says he "threw his youth into a grave". I think that symbolizes people working too hard during school and not doing anything else. That represents an unbalanced life. I think the whole part where he talks about working really hard for it, then not really appreciating it, and then getting tired of it--that could represent school as well--like doing homework and things like that. Also, the one part where he says it wasn't the gold that motivated him, it was more the process of getting it--that struck me instantly as the process being more important than the result. A lot of teachers tell our Synergy class that we're too uptight on marks (the gold) rather than the process of getting there, of learning the concepts required to earn the gold.
I think that's a good reminder for all of us. Sometimes, you get to the end of a project and you're not sure what you learned, only that you got a good mark. If you didn't learn anything, that mark doesn't really symbolize anything. It's only important if you keep the learning.
Thanks for reminding us of that, Mr. Olson :)
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