Self-Reliance by Ralph Waldo Emerson

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Relying on the notion that you own property—relying on the notion of a government that protects your property—means abandoning self-reliance.

Most people have looked outside of themselves and at things for so long that their lives become dedicated to the religious, cultural and civil institutions that guard their property. People who attack these institutions are dismissed, ridiculed, because what sane man would attack the idea of property? Their level of respect for one another reflects what each one has, and not what each one is.

But an enlightened man
becomes ashamed of his property
out of a new respect for his nature.

He especially hates what he has if he got it by accident—by inheritance, or gift, or crime. Then it's not really having. It doesn't belong to him because it has no root in him. It just sits there because no revolution or robber has taken it away.

But what a man is, is truly his. It's living property, not subject to the control of rulers, mobs, revolutions, fire, storm, or bankruptcy, but continually renewing itself every time he breathes. "Thy lot or portion in life," said the Caliph Ali, "is seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it."

Numbers

Depending on external things leads us to worship numbers. Political parties meet in huge conventions. With each larger gathering and each announcement louder than the next—The delegation from Seattle! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Republicans of Texas!—the young activist feels himself stronger than before by a thousand new eyes and arms.

In the same way, religious movements call conventions and take votes of the masses. Come on, folks! That's not the way to make God enter you and inhabit you—just the reverse.

It is only when a man frees himself
from all foreign support
and stands alone
that he will be strong and prevail.

You get weaker every time you recruit someone to join your side. Isn't a man better than a town? Don't ask anything of anyone and by natural selection your lone sturdy pillar will soon show itself to support everything around you. As soon as you see that your power is innate—that your only weakness has been looking for good outside yourself—and throw yourself unhesitatingly into your thought, you instantly regain your balance. You stand up straight, have control of your arms and legs, and work miracles, just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.

Triumph

So don't rely on "luck." Most people gamble, win everything, and lose everything as the wheel of fortune spins. But let me tell you: drop those winnings like stolen cash, and deal instead with Cause and Effect, the emissaries of God.

Be true to your Purpose
in what you do and what you acquire,
and you've chained the wheel of Chance,
and will sit from now on
without fear of its turning.

A political victory, a tax cut, recovering from an illness, a friend returns home. That or some other event raises your spirits, and you think happy days are here again.

Don't believe it.

Nothing can bring you peace but yourself.

Nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles.

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