Quote of the Day by Ralph Waldo Emerson, “The only person a man or a woman is destined to become is the person….”
Ralph Waldo Emerson was one of the most influential American thinkers, essayists and philosophers of the 19th century. He became the leading intellectual voice of American Transcendentalism, a philosophical movement that encouraged people to look beyond institutions and inherited beliefs and trust in their own conscience, intuition and relationship with nature. The movement flourished especially during the time between the publication of Emerson’s Nature in 1836 and the death of Henry David Thoreau in 1862.Born on May 25, 1803, in Boston, Massachusetts, Emerson was the child of a distinguished New England family. His father was a minister in the Unitarian Church and religion was of great importance to him in early life. Like the rest of the family, Emerson went to Harvard, and he later became a minister himself. But Emerson started to question the conventional forms of religion and the authority of established institutions. His doubts were not mere denial of spirituality. Instead he began to search for a more personal and immediate knowledge of faith. In 1832 Emerson resigned his pastorate, after the death of his first wife and his growing differences with traditional religious practice. He went to Europe where he was exposed to the main literary and philosophical currents including the European Romantic thinkers. He returned to America and began to develop the ideas that were to make him one of the country’s most important intellectuals.His essay Nature, published in 1836, is a seminal work of Transcendentalism. “Nature is not just scenery or a mass of physical objects,” said Emerson. It might be a way for people to understand themselves and the world and a source of spiritual insight. In Emerson, inward-looking and looking at nature were one. Both might offer people an escape from the limitations of convention.Emerson and the Philosophy of IndividualismOne of the most famous ideas of Emerson is self-reliance. In his 1841 essay “Self-Reliance,” he encouraged people to believe in their own thoughts, rather than conform to what society believed to be right. He thought people often give up their individuality because they are afraid to be different. His answer was not to become selfish or to ignore everyone around them. Rather, he believed that true individuality required the courage to think for oneself. This was a radical message in the 19th century, but it continues to be quite relevant.. Emerson believed that within each person there was the capacity to grow and learn. This was one reason why his philosophy became so powerful. He did not consider wealth, status, or public achievement to be the measure of greatness. One could be extraordinary by developing his own mind, character and conscience. His ideas also led people to question authority. If something had been accepted because it always had been accepted, Emerson thought that was not necessarily a good enough reason to keep believing it. This emphasis on independent thought became one of the hallmarks of American transcendentalism. Its leading philosophical exponent is generally considered to be Emerson, with Henry David Thoreau not far behind.For Emerson, nature was a very special thing. He regarded nature as a teacher. There are lessons about change, renewal, interconnectedness and human existence to be learned by a person paying attention to the natural world. Emerson was also interested in intuition – that sense within us that can lead us before logic or social approval takes hold. He did not believe that men were machines, completely conditioned by environment. They had imagination, conscience and comprehension of their experiences .Quote of the DayThe quote “The only person a man or a woman is destined to become is the person they decide to be” is about choice, self-belief and personal responsibility. It suggests that we are not just a product of our environment, our childhood, our mistakes or the expectations of other people. We don’t have control over everything that happens to us, but we do have a huge say in how we respond to life and who we become in the process.The important word in the quote is “decide.” Emerson’s idea is that becoming a certain kind of person begins with an internal choice. Before a person can be courageous, independent, compassionate, creative or resilient in their actions, they have to decide that they want to develop all of those qualities in their actions.Take a person who’s been told all his life that he’s not smart enough to be successful. They may believe it at first because the people around them believe it.” And then at some point they have another choice to make: I will not let someone else’s opinion define me. That will not guarantee immediate success. But it does alter the course of their lives. They could learn, they could take risks, they could look for opportunities and develop skills. And then, slowly, thru the way they act, the person they choose to become emerges.And that’s why the quote isn’t just about wanting. There is a big difference between wishing and deciding. A wish says I want to become confident. A decision says, I am going to work on being confident, even when I am uncomfortable. A wish wishes to be transformed. A decision starts the process of creation.The quote also challenges the idea of fate. Emerson flips the conventional idea of destiny on its head when he says that the person we are “destined to become” is the person we choose to be. Destiny usually suggests our future has been written already. Instead, Emerson argues, our choices to some degree shape our future.Of course, this does not imply that human beings are in total control of their lives. We do not choose our birth place, childhood, family, economic circumstances or many of the challenges we face. Even if people do everything they can to create a better life, they can still suffer illness, loss, discrimination, failure and injustice. So the quote should not be interpreted as “if you simply want it bad enough, you can do anything.” That would be too easy on life and would ignore the real barriers that people face. The deeper message is that circumstances can affect us, but they don’t have to fully define us.
