Self-Reliance

Are you choosing your life, or are you living someone else’s?

Ralph Waldo Emerson felt strongly about self-reliance… so much in fact, that he wrote an essay about it, which can be found in the famous collection of his work, "Emerson’s Essays".

Throughout his “Self-Reliance” essay, he says many times, and in many different ways, “Be yourself!” He believed that being who you are is worth ten-fold the copying of anyone else, and that offering the gift of your self is more valuable to the world than anything else you could offer. There you have it.

I imagine that Emerson must have been very tough-minded, and I also suspect that he was very much an individual. It must have been disconcerting and difficult for him to live in a world filled with copycats, terrified to find their own voice. But I state the obvious. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have written the essay.

It is ironic to me, with Emerson’s strong declaration of “find your own words; use not others’,” that he is one of the most quoted writers in metaphysics… “But he says it so well!” I declare, somewhat defensively…and with a grin.

Many times, I have said, “I do this work so that I can have more people to play with.” This is still ever so much the truth for me. I still want self-reliant people around me, because it supports me in being self-reliant, too, and that's why I teach self-reliance. That’s a game worth playing.

~Blessings, Rev Donald~