From the Desk of Thomas Ott

December 28, 2009

"If Only I..."

Some people are hoping that this year ends quickly and they look forward to a shiny new one, with no mistakes in it. Me? I made plenty of mistakes this year and I know that I learned from them. It's true, 2010 has no mistakes in it and we can all start anew but the same holds true for each day that we are alive in this world. Why wait for a brand new year? If you made a mistake or caused harm, own up to it, make amends, learn from it, and move on the very next day. Life is what you make it, so why spend time being miserable and wishing, "If only I..."

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Filed under // Inspiration Philosophy Thoughts

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December 10, 2009

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think.

I wanted to share with you something that has had a profound effect on me. It's an essay written by Ralph Waldo Emerson titled "Self Reliance." Below are two paragraph excerpts that will hopefully whet your desire to read the entire thing.

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. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.

and,

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises, they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened, and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so forth, in successive years, and always, like a cat, falls on his feet, is worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days, and feels no shame in not 'studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let a Stoic open the resources of man, and tell men they are not leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to the nations, that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries, and customs out of the window, we pity him no more, but thank and revere him, — and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor, and make his name dear to all history. [Self Reliance]

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Filed under // Emerson Essay Inspiration Self-Reliance

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September 12, 2009