Ten Thoreau Quotes to Live By

Every year as I teach Thoreau, I'm at least inspired to question the choices in my life, to contemplate the reasons why I do what I do. And every year, inevitably, I understand more and more about what he says. Many of us just work too hard, and we don't leave enough time in our lives to really enjoy or savor anything. When we do have spare time, we end up running around doing this and that or using the technology that was supposed to make our lives easier to accomplish more and more. I try my best to savor my life and enjoy my many and varied experiences. I try not to get caught in the trap of working for more and more stuff that I don't need anyway or valuing my own money too much. But it is sooo hard in this world where we are consumers of EVERYTHING, and the media tells us all about the things we need. Technology is seen as an all-powerful force that helps us immensely, and we must always push for progress. Being alone or sitting still is seen as a little peculiar to say the least. Life is all about the bottom line and getting the job done and working hard, but little focus is spent on anything internal. As Thoreau would say, "What about our own happiness, our own passions?" He always reminds me to drop out of the rat race or at least to slow down a little, enough so that I become out of sync with the masses. To at least question my own choices.

"It is never too late to give up our prejudices." This is such a statement of hope for ourselves and those around us. It is never too late to give up the preconceived notions that we have. In other words, it is never too late to change our ways. All of us have work to be done in our lives, and Thoreau tells us it is never too late to do that work. (Of course, he refers to work to be done on ourselves, not things like cleaning our houses). It also gives me great hope for the state of our country. I keep hoping that one day racism will disappear although it certainly hasn't yet.