In The Road by Cormac McCarthy, what are some important choices made in the book that were made by the man and the boy, was it postive or...

The decision I find fascinating is the boy's choice to not run from or shoot the "good guy with the shotgun" at the end.  Up until then the father had run from and/or threatened to shoot any stranger he encountered on the road.  He had repeatedly given his pistol to the boy and instructed him to do the same.  If the boy were to be captured, the man even told the boy to shoot himself.  And so, upon the first stranger the boy meets, with gun in hand, he chooses to abandon every instinct his father had taught him:

"Someone was coming. He started to turn and go back into the woods but he didnt. He just stood in the road and waited, the pistol in his hand. He'd piled all the blankets on his father and he was cold and he was hungry. The man that hove into view and stood there looking at him was dressed in a gray and yellow ski parka. He carried a shotgun upside down over his shoulder on a braided leather lanyard and he wore a nylon bandolier filled with shells for the gun. A veteran of old skirmishes, bearded, scarred across his cheek and the bone stoven and the one eye wandering. When he spoke his mouth worked imperfectly, and when he smiled."

Ironically, it took the father's death to save the boy.  If the father had not died, the good guy with the shotgun, who had been following them, may never have found him.  But the boy's act of faith, which the father I don't think could have made, is the holy grail.

So, if we relate this this to "real life experience," we need to think of instances in which we let down our defenses and act on faith...