Self Reliance

Emerson's "Self-Reliance" teaches us to trust ourselves. By ourselves, we have unique voices and opinions, which society shuts down as soon as we confront other people and the group. Society'sprimary concern is creating wealth and status, while the individual's concern is self-expression and fulfillment. We want to take life slow, savor every moment, express ourselves, and explore many talentsand skills. Society wants us to be big shots, put all our education towards one career, weed out our competitors to become successful, and make more money than we could ever need. But since society'sgoal's are so engrained inside us, we must learn to trust our own instincts as to what society tells us.

Emerson states that in solitude, individuals have voices, "which grow faint and inaudible aswe enter the world." Some of these thoughts and opinions that people come up with in solitude might cause fear when presented to society. Since society is such a delicate structure based on fear ofchaos, any novel voice will make the person who spoke it become "the other." Fear of alienation prevents voices from leaving solitude into the realm of society.

Emerson states that individuals whowork hard and pursue fulfillment should not be proud of the possessions they acquired. He says, "a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property, ashamed of what he has, out of respect for his ownbeing," meaning that acquiring property is just an accident. If you trust yourself and work towards the proper development of yourself by discovery of your innermost talents, then you should not acceptsociety's false reward of property. An ordinary person doing his best work is just as valuable as the "great" lives of kings and royalty. The greatest reward is knowing that you have found your ownunique self, and fully trust it.

Fulfillment verses success, self expression verses conformity, and solitude verses the group are important factors to distinguish. Emerson in "Self-Reliance" is not...