Think Your Own Thoughts
In his work, Self Reliance, Ralph Waldo Emerson writes, “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.” P. 118
NOTE: Maintaining one’s independence of thought is important in a world that screams at us telling us what is right or wrong. Some stop thinking and allow others to think for them. They then become the parrots of these people muttering things they themselves do not understand. An independent thinkers weighs what he hears and makes a judgement on the worthiness of what he heard. Question everything.