A Quiet Desperation
In my late 20s, I knew that I wanted to make a vocational shift, but I struggled to find the courage to do so. One day, I came across the lines of Transcendentalist philosopher Henry David Thoreau. “Most men lead lives of quiet desperation,” he wrote in <em>Walden</em> in 1854. <br /><br />Thoreau’s writing—a reflection on human nature’s tendency to reside in a “quiet desperation”—helped me to pinpoint my own misgivings about my professional path. This realization imparted me with the courage to face my self doubts, take a risk, and follow my vocational dream.<br /><br />Though Thoreau lapsed into an unfortunate gender bias (as women may lead lives of quiet desperation, too), I still took refuge in his words. Reflecting on my own life (which felt quietly desperate, I realized) imparted me with the audacity to make a change and follow my professional dream. My life, while still quiet, no longer feels desperate.
<em>Walden, or, Life in the Woods</em> by Henry David Thoreau
2013
Anonymous
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For the First Time It Felt Like Someone Was Writing About Me
English teacher Justin Parmenter describes how his encounters with essays by Thoreau and Emerson, and later with the poem “Lines Composed a Few Miles Above Tintern Abbey,” helped him to understand how literature can provide both an escape from the troubles of life and a connection to others who’ve seen and felt the same things though they may have lived centuries before.
By seeing himself in the transformative literature of Wordsworth, Thoreau, and Emerson, Parmenter felt like he had “the power to make changes” in his own life. Wordsworth’s Romantic vision and Thoreau’s and Emerson’s Transcendentalist philosophy jointly endowed Parmenter’s worldview with a greater meaning. As a teacher, he strives to cultivate a sense of personal connection between his individual students and works of literature.
The works of William Wordsworth, Henry David Thoreau, and Ralph Waldo Emerson
Justin Parmenter, Charlotte Mecklenburg School District, NC
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