Striving to become the greatest, in an effort to ease the emptiness inside of us, to make us feel as though we are worthy or above others, and with the idea that we will finally feel accomplished and valued, is desperate. This is why Emerson said, “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” So is adopting values for approval, striving for achievement in an effort to be admired, and working just to gather more things. The transcendentalists were also against materialism, and living your life with the aim of achieving enough money and materials to rise above the masses is just as desperate as blindly being one of the masses. However, Emerson, who went by Waldo, and was one of the great American philosophers, did not seem to mean his words in the way in which they are taken now. Being a blind slave to a job and a lifestyle that continued to eat away at your soul, living in a quiet desperation was not likened to living in a manner in agreement with Emerson. The transcendentalists, especially Emerson’s pupil, Henry David Thoreau, often liked to push social norms (they were very much progressive for their time) and pushed back on society and its institutions that corrupt us. Only then will you avoid a life of quiet desperation.” “Don’t be a sheep, don’t fall into the modern American trap, strive and work hard for a life that will put you above all of it, become wealthy, and achieve all of the things that you believe that you actually want. This line has become synonymous with the chasing of a superfluous lifestyle and the avoidance of the “desperation” of living in the nine-to-five hell that many of our peers seem to succumb to. This line is often seen quoted in bold, pasted over a faded picture of a symbol of an extravagant lifestyle, and then posted onto the Instagram timeline of a motivational account, or hung onto the wall of a college dorm. Let’s roll.It was Emerson who remarked that many men lead lives of quiet desperation. I hope that you will as well. If you’re ready for a new journey, one that will lead to a better marriage, better parenting, better fitness, a better career, and a better life experience, join me. I plan to take my family on a tremendous journey. We can be good men who are good at being men. We can incorporate traditional masculinity while rejecting the mistakes of the past. It’s time that we promote and reclaim these masculine virtues and apply them in our day. And the consequences are clear: more suicide, more depression, and more discontentment than ever before. As a result, most men have not developed their masculinity. It ignores the need for the masculine virtues of strength, courage, skillfulness, or honor. Our culture promotes comfort, pleasure, entertainment, and leisure. I’m convinced that when men are both good men and good at being men, women and children will also thrive. Most of us are good men, but it’s time for us to get better at being men. The life that society has tried to force us into is not working. There’s more to life than we’ve experienced. The strength, courage, and ability that sits inside of us can save the world. While many will tell you that men are the cause of the bulk of the world’s problems, I tell you that we will be its salvation. I’m here because I want to exchange the good for the great. I’m Stephen Marshall, an attorney, a husband of over 20 years, and a father of four. We feel the “quiet desperation” that Thoreau observed. Our families, our careers, our health, and our accomplishments are not what we envisioned. We’ve become too comfortable, too safe, too scared, too stable, too fat, too busy, too bored, too depressed, and too insignificant. We have good jobs, good wives, and good kids.īut when we get a moment to reflect, we realize that we’ve given up on our dreams. I don’t mean we haven’t been generally successful, because we have. For too many of us, things didn’t quite work out like that. We intended to take life by storm and dominate it. Thoreau famously wrote that “the mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Despite our advancements in civilization and technology since Thoreau’s day, his words still speak deeply to many men today.
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