Thinking Out Loud

Trust Your Instinct

In today’s post I begin sharing my thoughts as I read Ralph Waldo Emerson’s essay, Self Reliance. Self Reliance can be downloaded for free at qutenbern.org under the titleEssays by Ralph Waldo Emerson.  According the American Poetry Foundation, “Emerson New was a England preacher, essayist, lecturer, poet, and philosopher—was one of the most influential writers and thinkers of the 19th century in the United States.”

In his work, Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “To believe your own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men, —that is genius.” P. 110

NOTE: Emerson encourages us to believe in the wisdom of our thoughts. It’s the intuitive sense that assesses the thought and instinctively knows that this thought is the right path. Once our instinct is screaming at us, it us up to us to act upon it. I recall, during my time in academia, searching for a methodology that would benefit one of my doctoral students. I stumbled (or was it serendipity) across a methodology called appreciative inquiry. It made all the difference for my student. And, it made all the difference for me. I made the methodology the central piece of all my research.