It is no accident that the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson are often left unstudied in American classrooms today, despite the timeless nature of his work.
The Vietnam war in the 1960s set in motion a pessimism about the American Dream and a casting of doubt on the role of the American government as a force for good on the world stage, which resulted in the de-emphasizing of many of the great American writers including names like Thoreau, Whitman, and William James, among many others. The greatest of them all, in my humble opinion, was Ralph Waldo Emerson, the man who shaped, more than anyone else, the American ethos of individualism and self-reliance.
So we shut him up in our libraries, relegated him to the refuse pile of dusty tomes, and left him unread.
It’s time to change that.
With the incoming administration in America, along with the rise of populist leaders across the world like Pierre Poilievre in Canada and Javier Milei in Argentina, a swell of hope comes on the heels of a collective sigh of relief: a new era of nationalistic pride is upon us; the time has finally come again to become proud Americans. To ring in this dawning of a new age, it is time to revive the great American thinkers—and the great thinkers from across the world that make up the Western Canon of classic works.
Truly there is no better place to begin this adventure than with Emerson.
So here are 7 ideas from Emerson on purpose-driven living that shaped America as we know it today.
1. “And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as iron necessity is to others!”
We begin with the value of trusting yourself to select a purpose and gathering the courage to pursue it regardless of the likelihood of success.
To be self-reliant, becoming your own taskmaster is essential. You can either craft your own story or society will craft it for you, and, as the great C. G. Jung said, you may not like the story that’s written for you. Imagine how effective you could be if you chose a simple purpose and pursued it with all your energy and ability.
2. “What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness.”
The greatest people always select their mission and march off in the direction of it.
It is they who dictate the direction of society and its priorities. Consider Steve Jobs’ choice to bring the iPhone into the world and put one into every pocket. How has that simple purpose shaped life for us all?
3. “Henceforward I am the Truth’s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to observe that you should. I will not hide my tastes and aversions. I will so trust that what is deep and holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inley rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own.”
Commitment to the Truth is a prerequisite to discovering your true purpose because your highest and best use will always align with and correspond to the Truth, the nature of the universe, or God, since all those things are one and the same.
4. “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. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.”
Each of us is presented with an opportunity every day.
If we will undertake the adventure toward uncovering our highest calling by maximizing the unique strengths we have through intentional effort, we earn the right to discover exactly what we are really made of. The opportunity is there every day, regardless of whether we act on it. That is an analog to biblical ideas like “ask and ye shall receive” and “knock and the door will open” [Matthew 7: 7-8; Luke 11: 9-10].
5. “There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I properly am; in a virtuous act I add to the world. There can be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, always affirms an Optimism, never a Pessimism.”
Virtuous action is action aligned with Truth, the inevitable outcome of which is abundance and warm-hearted optimism.
There is no difference between virtuous action and what is “right” or “good.”
6. “A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to him, wherever he goes. He takes only his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps and circles round him…Those facts, words, persons, which dwell in his memory without his being able to say why, remain, because they have a relation to him not less real for being as yet unapproached…What attracts my attention shall have it…What your hearts thinks is great is great. The Soul’s emphasis is always right.”
This is why you remember some things and don’t remember the others.
Going in search of your grand purpose is the very same thing as the process of gathering to you what is like you and repelling what is unlike you. This is why the process of discovering the Truth is tantamount to the adventure of your life and why the idea of life becoming increasingly better for you over time is a direct result–and precisely proportionate to–the amount of service you render others and the value you create for them. This is why the story of Christ is the “greatest story ever told.”
Because the force that is God Himself (the Word, the Logos) voluntarily took on human, bodily form, lived and loved perfectly, then sacrificed himself for the benefit of all mankind.
That is what we are all called to do, whether we admit it to ourselves or not, and that is why following Jesus is always one and the same as the path to the most purpose, the most service of others, the highest personal value to society.
7. “The brave man is greater than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a man and not less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the good of virtue, for that is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence, without any comparative. Material good has its tax, and if it came without desert or sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the soul’s and may be had if paid for in nature’s lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and head allow.”
Get to work if you want a better life, even if what you think you want is only material gain.
Nothing good comes to us outside the channel of our direct labor and effort.