Self-Reliance: The Original Rule of Self-Help

Ralph Waldo Emerson’s “Self-Reliance” is an essay that can pierce the heart of individuals like myself who suffer greatly with anxieties and deal with the self-degradation of one’s own worth as a person. Daily, people like me go through life with feelings of inadequacies, and through inadequacy anxiety about what will become of us rise. The future is nebulous and we have to ask, will our dreams in life become a reality, or will we end up on a sidewalk rattling around a cup of spare change? This day and age is one that is tumultuous with increasing prices of products and services and an indifferent job market, and facing such tumult, especially as a college student beginning to take flight in independence, is a terrifying prospect. To give up on oneself and to allow the current to dictate one’s path through life is tempting, as one does not have to suffer as heavily through rejection and failure, but such a decision, without corpulent amounts of luck, is one that will lead down a path of one’s fears — a path of regret and longing. But what Emerson preaches in his essay is like the fundamental rules of self-help — that everyone has the potential to help themselves to become what they desire.

There is a bombardment of greatness that we all face from youth to adulthood. All throughout school and life, the accomplishments of great men and women are recalled and placed on a pedestal that the layperson sees as impossible to climb. The accomplishments of these great men and women seem set in stone, as if history was written before them, and all they had to do was allow the current to take them into greatness. But they were not born with inherently greatness. Some may have had more chances to rise up and becomes names within history, but in life, when compared to the layperson, they were not much different. Emerson points out that “he” as in us, dismiss “without notice [our thoughts]” for no other reason than because they are ours (550). The idea is prevalent throughout individuals that there is no potential for greatness within us, and therefore, we unconsciously deny our great thoughts, writing them off as merely fatuous. But there is potential for greatness in all of us, from the beggar on the street to a college student with poor work ethic. “Trust thyself” Emerson writes, as “every heart vibrates to that iron string” (550) In order to succeed, one must recognize one’s own potential for greatness is the same as those within history books.

But in order to rise up and see one’s potential, Emerson states that we must try, as there is “power which resides in [us],” power that cannot be fully realized until “[we have] tried” (550). Anxiety and self-deprecation are forces that are crippling, that shut down the power of an individual before one can step up to the challenge at hand. But the meaning and purpose behind self-reliance is that no one can help themselves better than their self. To rise above and find greatness, one must find that strength of pursuit within themselves and show, to their self, that they alone are capable to catch their desires.