The Myth of Self-Reliance - The Paris Review
To give and to receive, to owe and be owed, to depend on others and be depended on—this is being fully alive. To neither give nor receive, but to pay for everything; to never depend on anyone, but to be financially independent; to not be bound to a community or place, but to be mobile … such is the illusory paradise of the discrete and separate sel
... See moreCharles Eisenstein • Sacred Economics: Money, Gift, and Society in the Age of Transition
In working so hard to become independent, we forget how much satisfaction we get from the sense that others depend on us, and the meaning we can create by allowing ourselves to be dependent on others—if only we have the courage to let them help us.
billmei.net • Friendships Form via Shared Context, Not Shared Activities
As Emerson said in his essay on “Self-Reliance”: “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 t
... See moreDale Carnegie • How to Stop Worrying and Start Living (Dale Carnegie Books)
Is self-possession the way I find security? Or could even this experience be a door to a different way of being, where my dependence is not something I resent but something that I learn is the condition of creaturehood? While this might be an affront to my autonomy, perhaps it is my autonomy that is the source of my dis-ease, not its solution. What
... See moreJames K. A. Smith • On the Road with Saint Augustine: A Real-World Spirituality for Restless Hearts
In 1841, the American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson published his most profound essay, ‘Self-Reliance’. In it, he set himself the task of trying to understand where greatness comes from, in business, government, science and the arts – and his answer was touchingly close to home. Geniuses are those who know how to introspect and trust in their own
... See moreThe School of Life • A Job to Love (The School of Life Library)
But our culture drives us precisely in the wrong direction. We go to great lengths to promote individuality. We’re encouraged to adopt an independent view of ourselves. Not only do we view the individual as the fundamental unit of humanity, but we evaluate individuals at every turn and set people against one another with relentless competition. In
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