Journal 21

Quote from "Self-Reliance" by Emerson

"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."

In this passage, Emerson is saying that every person is unique and has his or her own gifts and talents to contribute to society.  That person has to work for himself to get where he needs to be in life.  Whatever is accomplished is a result of how much effort is applied to the work.  To Emerson, doing your own work and being yourself is of the utmost importance.  Say, for example, there is a girl named Alyssa who feels like she is a loser because she does not have the fanciest clothes and is not a great athlete.  Emerson would tell her that she should not be discouraged because everyone is different.  Not everyone has the same talents and will end up with the same occupation.  Alyssa should not be jealous of the other kids who that have nice clothes or are natural athletes because she has a special gift and purpose for her life that none of the others have.  It may be easy to want to be like others in order to “fit in” and be accepted, but by doing so it is much more difficult to develop skills that were actually meant for that person.  In another example, there are two friends.  One wants to become a lawyer and the other wants to become an accountant.  The two friends, however, wanted to work together so the friend that wanted to become a lawyer convinced the other to go to law school so they could start a firm together someday.  Law, however, is not what the other friend’s talent was in and she did not enjoy that occupation.  She would have been more successful and content if she had received a degree in accounting.  Apart from being unique, Emerson states that whatever profits a person will make have to come from that person’s own work.  While there are many people in the world who are willing to help others, each person must find a way to support himself.