“Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler.”
– Henry David Thoreau
Go looking for a “Congrats, Graduate!” card around May or June and you will find this Thoreau quote plastered along the whole greeting card aisle. It’s motivational for new grads, right? Hey, it’s motivational for anyone in any stage of life: Be confident. Pursue your goals hard and the doors will open. You can do it. Just do it!
But what about if you are a graduate/person whose dreams lack direction? Perhaps you only have an idea of what sorts of things you might like to do—write, study, help people—but no idea of what job might enable you to do them. Or perhaps no idea at all what you might like to do. These commands from a nineteenth-century dissident, a radical who so strongly believed in discovering the full and rich and necessary matters of life that he lived alone in the woods for nearly two years, are more intimidating and door-slamming than inspiring. How can we go confidently in a direction when we don’t know which direction to go?
In 2009, I went to the woods with a group of Calvin students studying the New England Transcendentalists. Emerson, Thoreau, both Alcotts. Literary, political, intentional, and committed, all of them. It was a cold day in January when we went to Walden Pond. We viewed the replica of Thoreau’s cabin, which he built for $28.12 and one half cent. A Thoreau impersonator gave us a tour, or rather he encouraged all twenty-some of us to cram into the single room while he described the building of the house. I am sure he quoted Walden but don’t remember which sections. Then he led us down to the shores of the frozen, snow-covered pond and we tramped along the path to the site of the actual cabin (long ago demolished). Its dimensions are marked off by chains, so we again crammed into the spot where the single room used to be. We smiled for a photo.
The day was peaceful; the snow was quiet and the birds called. Thoreau’s choice seemed less radical, somehow, as we walked the paths he had walked and looked out at the pond he had loved. Out here in the stillness, it was more feasible to imagine that he had managed to hear his innermost voice and to follow it with conviction. Not so difficult or crazy.
When you Google the quote above, you will learn from your first result, the Walden Woods Project, that Henry David never actually wrote these words. Here, the correct quote from Walden:
“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. . . . In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness.”
Not blustering commands, then. Advice. Recommendations that allow for a little more space to explore dreams and a little more flexibility in the endeavoring. It’s not that either you advance confidently or you don’t. There are degrees here.
I still judge myself for not having an all-encompassing dream that comes with a clear road map or a checklist for life. But Thoreau didn’t necessarily have these either before he tried out his life experiment. He had an idea and he explored it. He tested a hypothesis and Walden is his research. He didn’t start with the conclusion, as the misquote suggests to me. This makes me feel at least a little comforted.
In 2015, I will start a new job, and I will get married. I’ve decided to pursue at least these dreams confidently. And I’m excited to see where I go.
I expect it to be a very good year.
After graduating with an English degree, Amy (Allen) Frieson (’10) moved to New York City and spent several exhilarating years working in children’s book publishing. Now, she works as a career consultant and has much more time for writing, reading, wandering the city, cooking non-vegetarian meals (a new thing), dreaming about apartment renovations, and leading worship along with her husband at their NYC CRC.
