Margaret Kava

Write Alaska

19 July 2018

Self-Reliance

Finding ourselves, trusting ourselves, and knowing ourselves. What do they have in common? They all lead to something: Finding our path. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay “ Self-Reliance,” from 1841, has shown us what we need to find out what our paths leads to for us. We need to know and find about ourselves to thrive and stride to success.

“ We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents.” The power of finding ourselves is the first step to finding our paths’. Emerson is telling us that we don’t express fully of who we are to the people around us. We all tend to hide in what people want us to be and not who we want to be. That is the problem we face in finding yourself. If we don’t find out what we want to be then we will never be happy. We should not be ashamed or afraid of who we are.

Once we find ourselves then we must trust yourself. Emerson told us “ Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to the iron string.” We all trust someone in our lives, maybe more than we trust ourselves but, once we know what we want we must trust ourselves to reach the goal. No one can stop us from achieve our goal but ourselves. We must believe that we can do the impossible to achieve the impossible.

After finding ourselves and trusting ourselves, we must know ourselves. Knowing ourselves shows that we can do what we need to do to succeed with knowledge of the future. “ A foolish consistency is a hobgoblin of little minds” this shows us what Emerson believes in what knowing ourselves means. We should know our wants and needs fairly quickly, we need to know this so nothing can holds us back.

The essay Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote “ Self-Reliance” from 1841, has shown us the steps of finding ourselves : find ourselves, trust ourselves, and know ourselves. These steps help you try us find what we need to do to succeed in life.