Full transcript
0:10We want to experience so much in life, we can often ignore and neglect the quality of what
0:15we actually experience. We are so often drawn to lifestyles full of busy schedules, active social
0:21lives, frequent travels, and elaborate goals and achievements, we end up in lives focused on all
0:27of these things but very little on ourselves. The busy life is promoted to us by culture, in movies,
0:33in shows, the news, bestselling books, on social media, and so on. For much of the modern world,
0:40the ideal of this life is transfused into the blood. But is this way of life even good for you?
0:47Since oftentimes people who live very simple, modest, quiet lives are viewed as unexceptional,
0:52unsuccessful, losers, and so on, it can perhaps be hard to see a quiet, simple life of relative
0:59obscurity as something appealing, noteworthy, intentional, and difficult. But in truth, for
1:05at least some portion of us, this sort of life is in fact a redeeming endeavor indicative of immense
1:10discipline and wisdom. “If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because
1:16he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music he hears, however measured or far away,”
1:23wrote 19th century American transcendentalist writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau.
1:30Thoreau was a figure who focused much of his life and philosophy on the value of simplicity,
1:35self-reliance, authenticity, and separating from the influences and conventions of modern life.
1:41He not only wrote about these concepts, but he lived them. After avoiding expected, standard
1:46career paths and befriending the founding father of the transcendentalist philosophy movement,
1:51Ralph Waldo Emerson, for years, Thoreau lived by himself in a cabin in the woods
1:56on a plot of Emerson’s land. Here, he led a simple, quiet, secluded life, focusing only
2:01on what he believed he truly needed and valued. He worked only one day a week, reduced his material
2:07possessions to a minimum, separated from the social and cultural world, immersed into nature,
2:13and focus on his passion of writing. During this time, he wrote his masterwork, Walden.
2:19In one passage of this book, he reflects on his time and reasons for living alone in the woods,
2:24writing, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential
2:29facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die,
2:35discover that I had not lived. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
2:42We all want to live a good life and be successful, but how often do we stop and evaluate what a good,
2:47successful life might be for us? How often do we consider, not how it would look from the outside,
2:53but how it would feel from the inside — the only place it is actually experienced?
2:59Plainly, being successful merely means having adequately accomplished a pre-determined goal
3:04or task. And so, arguably, being successful in life depends solely on having mindfully
3:10determined an overarching goal for how you want to live and then living adequately that way.
3:15Thus, those who live a quiet, modest, simple life are just as successful as someone who
3:20lives a busy and culturally significant one. So long as in both cases, both ways of life
3:25are intentionally pursued, both are equally successful when obtained. Only in the case
3:32in which someone is living unintentionally and without deliberation is one unsuccessful. Thus,
3:38even on the highest of thrones, the remotest of destinations, and the most private of rooms,
3:43we might just as likely find examples of failure, as we might in a small cabin in the woods.
3:50Of course, some of us might find ourselves in conditions and circumstances we did not choose
3:55that cannot easily be broken free from — conditions that come with financial,
3:59mental, or health constraints and responsibilities that require ways of life that we may not prefer.
4:04And, of course, many of us do prefer busy, frantic, material lives. But for the number
4:10of us for whom this is not the case, if we choose to give up our time to people and things we don’t
4:15value that take us from people and things we do, where a different, accessible orientation of our
4:20life would not require this, then perhaps we have ventured the wrong direction and would benefit
4:25from some amount of simplification, or at the very least, a reasonable renovation of our lives.
4:32Inevitably, we all must give up some portion of our time to people, things, and tasks that we do
4:37not want to. But the essential question we must ask ourselves – when we can – is how much, why,
4:43and for what. We all know that time is the only commodity that cannot be earned or bought back
4:49when it is gone, and in a fundamental sense, it is the only thing we truly have. And yet we often
4:55exchange it haphazardly for reasons we don’t think much about. We would never let anyone take our
5:00money or our car or any of our stuff, but yet, we often freely let people and things and experiences
5:07take our time every day, month, year, and decade. And here is where we might call upon Thoreau,
5:13Emerson, and other great thinkers alike to realize the value of our deliberateness and focus on our
5:19time, our perception, and the internal experience of our lives, and not on things, other people’s
5:24opinions, and that which we cannot control outside of ourself. "In short,” Thoreau wrote,
5:30“I am convinced, both by faith and experience, that to maintain one's self on this earth is
5:35not a hardship but a pastime, if we will live simply and wisely"
5:41Perhaps we don’t always need take that new job with those greater responsibilities,
5:45accept that invitation to that concert or that party, go to that place we’ve seen everyone go,
5:51keep as many relationships with as many people as we can, try to keep up with everyone we know and
5:56see online, or buy that new version of that new thing. Perhaps, rather, for some of us,
6:02we would be better served by focusing on how to draw down the items on the to-do-list,
6:06the events on the calendar, the people we engage with, and instead, keep a relatively
6:12concise schedule with just a few important things and a few important people. In truth,
6:17an exciting life is a life in which we are excited to be alive, not necessarily one in which we are
6:22always frantically doing things. There is nothing impressive about living a life you do not like
6:28if you do not have to. And there is great virtue and heroism in simply staying sane, kind, spending
6:35meaningful time with a few close loved ones, and maintaining authenticity in one’s work and life.
6:43Of course, none of this is to make light of the difficulty of doing such a thing and
6:48living such a way. Swimming against the current of social conventions, of personal and cultural
6:53expectations, of what you’re currently doing, is like trying to get back to the shoreline while the
6:58force of the ocean’s current pulls you further and further out to sea. And moreover, the ambiguity of
7:03what we actually want and what is actually good for us is always present. The temptation of the
7:09alleviation of responsibility by just letting the current take us and living how others live,
7:15defining success and excitement how others define it, spurs in every post on social media
7:20and intimates in every encounter in which we are asked what do you do? But in the words of Thoreau,
7:26“Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth.”
7:31To find truths and values, Thoreau looked to nature, independence, and a life of simplicity.
7:37But arguably, where we look is perhaps far less important than why we look where we do. It is
7:43in Thoreau’s deliberateness that we should draw inspiration from, not necessarily his lifestyle. A
7:48successful life is not one filled with important meetings, active social lives, high wealth, or
7:54fame, but nor is it one reduced to its most basic form, filled primarily with free time and leisure.
8:00A successful life is simply a conscious one — one made of authenticity, self-reliance,
8:06and continual adaptation toward who we are and how we want to live. In the end, the only shame of
8:12being unsuccessful in life is being unsuccessful in living how you want to, the best you can.