Analyzing Self Reliance

Introduction

In society today it is very hard to be ones own one-by-one self. Peopled are inclined to glimpse other people as either individualists or conformists. If a individual doesn't drop in with the "in" crowd then you are advised to be strange" or "un-cool". Ralph Waldo Emerson made this apparent in his term paper "Self-Reliance.” “Self-Reliance” also had some topics that concentrated on the topic of individualism. It also displayed how he considered self-reliance would play out in individual conduct. Plus I understand nearly exactly what's it's like to be seen as peculiar and, or “un-cool” just because I wasn't part of the “in” crowd and endeavoured to be like every person else.

One is told that being self reliant is the most important thing that one will learn in life. Reading the excerpts from the essay by Ralph Waldo Emerson titled Self Reliance only made that comment more true. The excerpts itself was very well written and very thought provoking. Being in high school one is not always forced to rely on self for there are parents, teachers, and friends, who are there to help. One can be easily persuaded to use those resources to the fullest extent. Being self reliant is being about to get things finished on someone else terms and times, but completing and proving your competence.

Discussion

Emerson strongly believes that people look at others more than they look at themselves and what they have. He says, "There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance.” (Emerson 1005) This talks about what people have and how they feel about it. If people look at other's possessions and are jealous of them, then they're not looking at what they themselves have, and they think that others possessions are better than theirs. Therefore, these people are being ignorant of their own possessions. He further says that, "…imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion." (Emerson 1005) He explains that if people are not true in the sense of individualism, then those people are in effect “committing suicide.” Society will look at these people, who try to imitate others, with a different perspective than other people; society always singles people out into a “crowd” due to this. Emerson then describes how people must take themselves for whom and what they are, and people should neither change nor imitate others. He says "We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents." (Emerson, 1005) If people believe that they cannot be depended on, then they can't rely on others. People then become unconfident in what they do and therefore don't trust other people. This, in turn, affects everyone's morals and has a very negative effect on the human consciousness. In effect, people will try to keep a distance from these individuals because of their behavior that results from this.

Emerson then reinforces the concept of individualism and how people ...