Self-reliance

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1. EverForeverOct 2024
   Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson
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2. ToDougieAug 2023
   I read "Self Reliance" by Ralph Waldo Emerson, "The New Psycho-Cybernetics" by Maxwell Maltz, and "The Power of Habit" by Charles Duhigg. These three are at the front of my mind. Especially Emerson. "Self-Reliance" was pivotal.

   I listened to "The Power of Now" audiobook by Eckhart Tolle. This coupled with The New Psycho-Cybernetics helped me understand "where" my thoughts were coming from and how to handle them. I was in a lot of pain from sports injuries, and Eckhart Tolle's concept of the "Pain-body" manifesting itself in my thoughts and actions helped me kill self-destructive behavior at the source. A decade+ later, I would also recommend C.S. Lewis' "The Screwtape Letters" because I rather enjoy the idea that "demons" are competing for my energy, and I am beating them.

   I watched plenty of YouTube content from positive male role-models, such as Elliott Hulse (his content has radically changed in the last decade, but in the early days it was very wholesome).

   I worked on my body.

   I stopped doing drugs.

   I took care of my diet/nutrition.

   I improved my appearance (more consistent grooming, better-fitting clothes... nothing radical).

   I finished my undergraduate degree.

   I decided that I had a duty towards something greater than myself. Even if it felt like the "message" coming from society at large was "aimed" at me, I determined that it would be better to work on myself and hone my skills in order to be a positive force in the world and role-model to those around me.

   I sacrificed time that I would have otherwise spent consuming media and replaced it with more constructive endeavors (learning basic software engineering skills). This helped me find gainful employment to pay my bills, and give me health insurance.

   My parents were supportive in some ways, and clueless or lazy in others.

   My friends were very supportive. One of them grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and shook some sense into me. Literally. He said he was done with my excuses. This made a massive impact.

   My girlfriend(s) were not supportive. I knew I needed to improve myself, and that was probably unattractive. I can't blame them.

   The most important person in the equation was myself. I learned to stop letting other people control my emotions or affect my mindset.

   tl:dr; Grab a copy of Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson and READ IT. Let it sink in. Then put it into practice.

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3. r9295Jun 2023
   Ralph Waldo Emerson's collection of essays:

   "Self-Reliance and Nature The Complete First and Second Series of Emerson's Essays"

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4. thenerdheadJun 2022
   Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

   Pushing to the Front by Orison Swett Marden

   Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

   I'm still working my way back in time, but so far these three are great!

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5. codemonkey-zetaAug 2021
   Great wisdom presents itself with different faces to different people throughout time, but maintains the same essence. That's what makes it wisdom. It is eternal and unchanging, it just takes perspective to see.

   I had exactly the same epiphany while reading Meditations. I thought, "wow, this sounds an awful lot like the Buddhism I've read/heard about".

   Again, after reading Ralph Waldo Emerson I saw the same wisdom with a different face. I realized that all these people throughout time came independently to precisely the same conclusions about how to live life as part of the great "wholeness" (for lack of a better word) to which we all belong.

   My experience with Buddhism is mostly limited to interactions with an old Buddhist friend, but in terms of literature I found Hermann Hesse's Siddhartha and J. D. Salinger's Teddy to be very palatable from a western perspective.

   For stoic philosophy you can really do no better than Marcus Aurelius's meditations, specifically the more modern Gregory Hays translation. Epictectus's discourses are pretty good too, but are less pithy and have a lower signal to noise ratio when it comes to true wisdom IMO.

   Emerson's Self Reliance, History, and finally The Oversoul will reveal the same wisdom from all the other works I mentioned.

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6. ncfaustiMay 2021
   I think this is just the nature of the "buffet of information" we currently enjoy. As in a restaurant, if you keep eating, no matter how good the food might be, you'll get sick of it eventually.

   You don't have to read them all. At some point (after much learning and preparation of course) we all have to decide to be our own guide; to trust our own intuition and primary research to know what's best for us.

   Each of us have incredibly unique backgrounds, experiences, goals, and values. Until we start to take action on the things that we really want to achieve, articles like these will eventually come to sound like the same tired platitudes. Check out Emerson's essay Self-Reliance if this resonates with you. (And yes I recognize the irony :) of my comment.)

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