Project 1

Alesha Daniels

English 205

Project 1

3/3/2018

Project 1

In my life I seem to have this recurring theme self-reliance and the older I get the more I stop needing anyone's help with everything. I have chosen the reading of “Self-reliance” by James Monroe Whitfield because I feel as if he is trying to help us understand how relying on oneself can be the greatest thing for us. This reading has some connection in which my life can relate to. Monroe has a way with his words in which he does not completely tell us a direct answer but a obvious hidden explanation to his logical reasonings on self-reliance.

Growing up I always depended on people and always cared about what people thought about me. However as I started getting older I realized that other people are not going to just give me the justification and success I need to achieve on my own. For example as a kid I always knew that I wanted to move to another country and live there. So as I started getting older and the idea became more  bigger to me I always explained to my family that sooner or later I would leave the country. My goal is to become an English teacher in some foreign country. I know that to become an English teacher in a foreign country I need to go to college and get my English degree. Now to do that I have to pay attention and work hard because no one else is going to do the work for me I have to do it by myself. In which this part of the puzzle I have to rely on my own skills and mine to help me achieve my goal. In addition to relying on myself I also rely on God to help me get through all the hardships and struggles that I need to pass in order to succeed. My point is my primary family knew of my ideas and they were very open to them. However the rest of my family was not too Keen about the decision that I'm making. They said that it was a bad idea and basically leaving America would be very dangerous especially in the country that I am trying to teach him which is Korea. In the beginning Woodfield says “ I love the man whose lofty mind on God and its own strength allies; who  seeks the welfare of his kind... who cares not for the world's Applause, but, to his own fixed purpose true, the patch which God and nature's laws, point out, doth earnestly pursue”. If we look here we can see that the author gives credit to man/woman who don't care about what other people think of him/her except only what he thinks of himself and what God thinks of him too. My mom always told me that it doesn't matter what people think about you it only matters what you think about yourself and I really take that to heart.At the end of the day it's my decision whether or not I want to stay in this country or leave this country. It's my life so I can do whatever I want and the only way that I'm going to get something isn't what I rely on myself to get it. Monroe also said “ The patch which God and nature's laws point out doth earnestly pursue”. In this part of the text it seems as if the author he's telling us that we need to cover up the patch in our lives by ourselves. Everybody has a hole in their clothes but it's up to you whether or not you choose to sew it up or have someone do it for you.

In the text Monroe puts heavy pressure on how God plays a big role in self-reliance. He says “ But trusting in the aid of heaven and wielding with unfaltering arm the utmost power which God has given conscious that the almighty power will nerve the faithful soul with might whatever storms may round him lower strikes both leave for the true and right”. Relying on God in yourself well complete you because God has the most power in the world so all you need is him and your mind to keep you  pursuing forward. However if you rely on God isn't it like relying on somebody else and it's not just you yourself. In my previous years I have read another text my Emerson in which he had the same views about self reliance. Ralph emerson shows us in his essay “Self-Reliance” some very prominent matters such as , you should not have to rely on others you should only rely on yourself and only the consistency of yourself . “Be yourself; no base imitator of another, but your best self. There is something which you can do better than another. Listen to the inward voice and bravely obey that. Do the things at which you are great, not what you were never made for.”  Basically emerson is saying that the man that follows others will not be able to shine on there own , because by relying on others ideas and thoughts you will lack your own creativeness . Emerson believes that the child has more self reliance than anyone because they are young and their minds are more creative and they follow their own ideas not following after someone else's imagination or original ideas.

In conclusion I feel as if this theme of self-reliance revolves around me because I'm always relying on myself to do things I never like asking people for help because I was raised to “ Get things on my own”. Even when it comes to having a partner (which I never had before) my family always told me that I shouldn't have to rely on a man to do everything for me or anybody in that case I should only rely on myself. When it comes to going to school getting my education and planning my future all of that revolves around me and I am the only person that can help myself succeed as long as I have faith in God and Trust in myself I can do anything. In the end Monroe states that as long as you have God and yourself you are complete. Now I haven't finish getting my English degree yet I am pursuing it now but I know that in the end my goal will be accomplished in all of it will be because of myself in my hard work.

Work Cited:

EMERSON--ESSAYS--THE OVER-SOUL,

    archive.vcu.edu/english/engweb/transcendentalism/authors/emerson/essays/selfreliance.html.

James M. Whitfield's America and Other Poems: "America",

        www.classroomelectric.org/volume1/levine/reliance.html.