"Only that day dawns to which we are awake."
Henry David Thoreau, Walden
Just in case you haven't had a chance to read Walden, let me try to add some context to this quote. While righting this, his seminal work, Thoreau built himself a house in the wilds of Ralph Waldo Emerson's property and stayed there for two years, removed from society just to see if living apart from society was a reasonable proposition. First published in 1854, Walden is Thoreau's memoir of these two years and provides some of the most lasting insights into our individual quests for contentment.
I know, I know, where would you ever find the time to read such a book? That's the very question I have asked myself for years. And yet, I have always been drawn to Thoreau's quotes and still draw tremendous inspiration from them.
If you are a fan of James Patterson, Dan Brown, or Harlan Coben then you may have some trouble getting through Walden. Not because it is deeply intellectual or even deeply philisophical, but because the style of writing, and indeed of speech, in 1854 was much different than our contemporary cadences. There is simply profound wisdom to be found within its pages.
As my Happy Spring gift to each of you, I think I can save you from having to read the whole book. Here are my favourite bits:
"Be the Lewis and Clark of your own streams and oceans; explore your own higher latitudes...However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not as bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the almshouse; the snow melts before its door as early in the spring...Things do not change; we change...No man loses ever on a lower level by magnanimity on a higher...Money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul... I love to weigh, to settle, to gravitate toward that which most strongly and most rightfully attracts me - not hang by the beam of the scale and try to weigh less - not suppose a case, but take the case as it is; to travel the only path I can... Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitality...How long shall we sit in our porticoes, practising idle and musty virtues...There is an incessant influx of novelty into the world, and yet we tolerate incredible dullness...Let everyone mind his own business, and endeavour to be what he was made...I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavours to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours...Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is beause he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away."
In the spirit of Thoreau, may you be truly awake to the new day that dawns tomorrow...
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