Ralph Waldo Emerson's Self-Reliance

According to Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, self-reliant means confident in your own abilities and able to do things for yourself. Reading Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Self-Reliance helped me to create my own definition of what it means to be self-reliant. For me, self-reliance means being morally independent and not conforming to society’s mold of how a person should be.

The first line of Self-Reliance is “Ne te quæsiveris extra” which means “Don't seek the self outside of the self”. The only person who can truly know who you are is yourself. People often look to others to find answers and change themselves to fit in. We strive for acceptance among others, but why? According to Emerson, “Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of

The only person that will stand with us at anytime is ourselves. As I am aging, I have to become more and more self reliant. I am still greatly influenced by my external world, but I am becoming more independent. If you wish to be successful in life, you need to become self-reliant. The older you get the more decisions and responsibilities you have. If you can't handle yourself and your responsibilities you are destined for failure. At times, becoming self-reliant may be difficult. Emerson said that “the world whips you with displeasure” if you resist conformity, but if becoming self-reliant was easy I wouldn't be writing this essay. Society doesn't like for individuals to be too self-reliant. You can't be controlled by the conspiracies of society. Being self-reliant is more than making your own decisions or being responsible for yourself. Self-reliance goes further to a mental level. Being self-reliant means thinking for yourself without external influences on your thoughts. Only you know what you truly want, and only you can get it. Nobody else will get it for you. “Nothing can bring you peace but yourself”. As I read Self-Reliance, I thought back to Jon Krakauer's book Into the Wild. Chris McCandless was a very self-reliant man at