The Idea Of Nonconformity In Transcendentalism

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Transcendentalism shows up very often in today 's society without even knowing it.
Have you ever met someone who has never cared about what anyone else thought? Someone who always spoke their mind even if they had to be brutally honest. Sort of living based on free thought. I 've had learned that just because everyone else has a certain believe, it does not mean you are required to think the same. Along with free thought comes nonconformity, learning to be myself on my own terms, confidence being able to be strong and stick by myself and self reliance being able to confide in myself. Society has made it hard for almost everyone to exist when things in popular culture seemingly brainwashes youth into doing whatever is considered “cool”. Transcendentalism
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I used to let others tell me that I was a failure and would not go far. Which is why I like the idea of nonconformity in transcendentalism the most. A lot of the time i was never comfortable with who I was and always thought failure was for me and there was nothing I could do to change that. I always got pushed down to the lowest level and it got to a point when I quit trying to push myself back up. Living by other people 's expectations was not the way I wanted to live; I did not want to conform to what others wanted of me instead I wanted to learn to be comfortable and true to myself and never expect less of myself than what I knew I was capable of. Living by the terms of others made me forget to pay attention to the wonderful details of life and become unfocused on what I wanted for myself. According to Henry David Thoreau’s Walden, “Our life is fritted by details. This quote makes me think of myself when I was in this situation. It explains how we rush through life and don 't take the time to appreciate the wonderful things life has to show. It help emphasize that we can not just conform to what’s normal and what others want we have to strive to make our story unique. Also one of Ralph Waldo Emerson quotes from Self-Reliance, “Imitation is suicide” helps emphasize the idea to not conform to be someone else, someone who you really are not. Be yourself and be the greatest version of you that you can be. Do …show more content…
The idea behind free thought has part in all the other three tenets mentioned. It helps remind that everyone has a different way of thinking and there is nothing we can do to change what others think or how they think. “ You must trust that your beliefs are unique, your own even though others may think them odd or unpopular.” The meaning behind this quote from the movie Dead Poets Society is that we should learn to trust our own thoughts. Never consider others opinion bigger than our own. Thinking for ourselves shows maturity and strength to be able to have an opinion based on our own thoughts without caring what others may think or say about it. Being able to develop thoughts and opinions on our own helps us become different from each other, if we all just followed each other there would be no way to distinguish our differences that make us amazingly

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