Self-Reliance

The Essay of Free Thinking Inspired by Ralph Waldo Emerson

In life, there are many things you must do yourself, like learning to do something. No one can learn for you, people can teach you or, you can teach yourself. Ralph Waldo Emerson says not to follow what others say is normal and think for yourself don’t always rely on others. “Self-Reliance” was written in 1841, by Ralph Waldo Emerson on the importance of hard work, trusting yourself, and having the ability to change your mind and think for yourself.

 Emerson speaks on the importance of hard work for achieving your goals. “A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best” in this Emerson is talking about how when you try and put your hard work in to something you should be proud, even if you mess up it was yours and you worked on it and tried your hardest. This was one of the most powerful statements in the whole essay because he touches on two of the main points of this essay work hard and trusting yourself.

Then Emerson also talks about Trusting yourself. He even just says “Trust thyself” trusting yourself is an important part of Self-Reliance, if you don’t trust yourself how could you live? You wouldn’t be able to believe in your goals or ideas. You would be able to do just about nothing and you would always doubt yourself. Trusting yourself is key to SELF-reliance.

Lastly Emerson goes on to talk about changing your mind and thinking for yourself. “Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard word again, though it contradicts everything you said to-day.” in this quote Emerson is saying its OK to change the way you believe or change what ideas you have or think. If we all kept our same way of thinking we would never learn from each other or experience.

Emerson wrote this in 1841 but it is still relevant today. He spoke on the importance of hard work, free thinking and believing in yourself. He hoped to teach us how to be self-reliant. We all could use these things in our own lives. If it is watching the news and believing the media or your own ideas to building a table and it having one short leg and still being proud that you put effort and hard work in to something.


Jerry Morales