Inner Peace

“Whatever course you decide upon there is always someone to tell you that you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. TO map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires…courage.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson.

When I was in high school, we had to memorize poetry and analyze different stories for the majority of our literature classes. One of my favorite time periods in American writing was the transcendentalist writers.  Transcendentalism was a religious and philosophical movement that was developed during the late 1820s and 1830s that stressed the importance of nature.  Some of the more famous among these writers were Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.  Thoreau lived in the woods at Walden Pond for two years and two months with very little human interaction. He started living there in July 1845 and left September 1847.He went there to get in touch with himself and put himself in nature where he would be comfortable to do his writing. Ralph Waldo Emerson, my personal favorite of the group, was any essayist and a poet. Emerson's religious views were often considered radical at the time. He believed that all things are connected to God and, therefore, all things are divine. He believed that one could come to peace with God through nature. His critics accused him of taking away from the traditional ways of being with the Holy Father. Emerson was a renowned orator and was seen as an individual who had a way of influencing others and inspiring people.

My yearbook of my senior year in high school we were allowed to customize a “senior page” to put into the end of it. Part of the page had to include a quotation. I had no problem finding pictures to put on the page, but I couldn’t quite find the quotation I wanted that I felt explained what I wanted to say. I was reading through an article that talked about Ralph Waldo Emerson and I found the quote I wanted.

 “What lies behind you and what lies in front of you, pales in comparison to what lies inside of you.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

            My biggest fear in life is the future. What might happen, what will happen, all these if questions pass through my mind. They affect every decision I a make. This quotation inspired me that all that I have already conquered, and have yet to face, do not compare to the person that I have already become. And that the person I have become will help me through my future.