Importance Of Self Reliance

In recent discussions of self-reliance, an issue has come up while I was reading a few essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson and Apology by Plato, I asked myself have I been holding myself back. On the one hand, I feel as if I have, for example when it has come to education I never had to decide what classes to take or decide my schedule. From this perspective most classes were picked for you except for electives, but the classes of real interest are not available until higher education. However I would have to see this from the outside in by examining the structure that society puts most of their youth through to give them a basic foundation to eventually build from, but in this process makes these young students lack in the ability to rely on themselves.

That foundation comes from the education and our willingness to learn. Education helps by making you think about subjects from different angles while interpreting information for yourself. The more you pursue knowledge the better off you will be because you are able to see things critically and in between the lines. In the essay Self-Reliance written by Emerson he states:
There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till (2).
Emerson’s point is that eventually through the progression in one’s education a person will come to realize that they are the only ones who can make themselves succeed or fall. I agree with Emerson on this respect because only you will get what you want by hard work and making your own success while not relying on others people to help you. As people we cannot live in the shadows of those who inspire us, eventually we have to move in our own direction and take charge of our own lives. Although we can be knowledgeable thinking that you know everything can be a huge downfall. A person might be in charge of their own life but it is never good to believe that you know more because we can all learn from each