"There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till."
-Emerson
It seems to me that this quote is trying to show its readers that one's experiences through life all influence each other. Every part of your life is another step in your grand staircase. I got that especially from the quote about how a kernel of corn can not come to a person unless he first decides to till it. I also get from that part of the quote that we, as humans, cannot go forward in life without thinking about the past and what it has done to us and our society. We all came from somewhere. Something had to start our existence so that we could live our lives. This also shows us that we should work hard for our dreams. We cannot expect that they will just come to us out of the blue. Obviously, we have to put some effort in. We have to choose to make those first steps towards our goals. Doctors do not become doctors over night. They have to work through years and years of medical school and other training, and before that, they had to maintain good GPA's in their schools. That works for almost any profession. As for the first part of this quote, it seems to be explaining how everyone experiences a moment where they realize that they have so much to live for. "Envy is ignorance; imitation is suicide". We have to be ourselves and achieve our own goals. We can not live in the shadow of others. We have to be our own people and be great without anyone else to lean on.
I really like this quote, it is all about self reliance and how you cannot depend on others for everything. Obviously, that being the title of his essay, he was trying to explain self reliance, but I really can understand it from this specific quote. I am all about getting help from others. However, I also understand that there are extents to the help you can get. You have to eventually step up and do something for yourself. If you do not, you will not be able to achieve all that you could have, had you tried. Once you know that you are able to depend on yourself, then life will become so much better and easier. This quote spoke a lot about how people should live their lives.
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