Fulfilling Life Begins and Ends Essay

God is like art in that it cannot be learned, it must be experienced. To experience God, one must be brave because "God will not have his work made manifest by cowards" (Emerson). This bravery includes disregarding the risk of ridicule from others. The rewards of this connection are great, as they open us to many things. Emerson writes, "when God speaketh he should communicate, not one thing, but all things . . . Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, then old things pass away . . . It lives now, and absorbs past and future into the present hour" (Emerson). Here Emerson places all things in the here and now. This rhetoric is found in popular circles today. Many self-help gurus will tout living in the now as the future never arrives and the past is already gone.

Nature plays a significant role is man's fulfillment. Through an experience with nature, life-changing experiences emerge. Only in undisturbed moments with nature can man release his inhibitions, his ego, and everything else that society attempts to teach him. We need to recharge and in quiet moments, we discover new things. He writes men should "learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages" (Emerson). Emerson's advice is to "trust thyself" (Emerson), echoing similar sentiments from Shakespeare. When are true to ourselves, things become more apparent and nature and God help us achieve moments of enlightenment.

Emerson is clear about the dangers of not living a fulfilling life: it leads to discontent and disillusionment. Happiness lies in being true to oneself because the most frightening thing would be to wake up old one day and realize that you have never done an original thing. Originality introduces you to yourself and from that, you will become self-reliant because the two are connected. Emerson places much faith in mankind because he understands the significance of what he has learned. From his experiences, he can speak about the prizes earned from self-reliance. Through communing with nature and God, he knows himself. In moments of reflection, he steps away from the world and all its distractions and finds a peace and fulfillment that is its own reward.

We are the most free when we choose to let go of what the world attempts to push on us and think for ourselves. While certain levels of conformity are expected, we should never be so conformist we do not know who we are. Discovering our true selves is work but it is the most rewarding work. Emerson outlines the significance of self-discovery in "Self-Reliance." His efforts are to point out the important of being loyal to what we believe to be true and the only way to know these things is to know ourselves. Knowing ourselves stems from a desire to move away from what the world throws at us. Emerson wrote, "Men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem what they call the soul's progress, namely, the religious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property. . . They measure their esteem of each other by what each has, and not by what each is" (Emerson). Even today, we struggle with the same things and the only way around this is to look within.

Work Cited

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Self-Reliance."…