Life Advice from Longfellow (An Analysis of Longfellow’s Psalm of Life) Buddha once said, “Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” People sometimes look back on their lives and aren’t always satisfied by what they see there. There are many factors that must be taken into consideration to lead a happy, healthy life such as taking chances and living for the moment. In Longfellow’s Psalm of Life, he explains these factors. There are three important messages in Longfellow’s Psalm of Life. The first theme in Psalm of Life is to continuously learn and try new things everyday. People complain that they are tired of doing the same thing everyday, when it is their own fault. In lines 11and
Buddha, a man who devoted himself to years of contemplation and self-denial, once said “do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment”. Thinking too much about times gone by typically keeps your mind stuck in neutral. Existing in an earlier life could result in revisiting feelings of anger, guilt, resentment, sorrow, or shame. Obsessing about the people and events precipitating such negative feelings can lead to endless rethinking. Becoming increasingly lifeless, or infatuated, thinking really cannot progress toward any resolution. Ultimately, it is pointless to employ memory to hold onto what may have been lost many years ago. As a result of not letting go of the past, it is possible to be robbed of present opportunities. Often, in many novels the characters are still dwelling on their past in the present. In The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the author demonstrates how George Wilson and Jay Gatsby are held hostage by their pasts with little hope for their futures.
This quote sound comparable to something one of my close acquaintances would say because they don’t like to dwell on the past and they don’t care about what’s going on right now; they only care about what happens in their future. We all know the famous children’s cartoon animator, Walt Disney (most famous for creating Mickey Mouse). One of his movies had a really good quote kind of relating to this one, “Around here… we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things” (Meet the Robinsons) I thought of this quote because (I love this movie)
The quote in the book Three Times Lucky, “We can’t change the past, Solider. We can only be grateful for a new day, and move on”(Turnage, 225). This quote means a lot to me in life. The past already happened and we can’t go back in time to change it, but what we can do is be glad that there’s new day coming to us and not make the same mistakes as we did in the past. We learn from our past, so in the future we can become a better person than what we were in the former years. Also we can’t be living in the past forever, so we have to be thankful that there’s a destiny in front of us and move on. This quote inspires me this year in English class is I can’t change what I did or did not learn in my previous years in English class, but I can use
Life is short. It is a realization that can take years to realize, and even longer to affect one’s actions. Especially after a loss, the absence of this knowledge can cause many regrets about the past, and what should have been done. In his book Dandelion Wine, Ray Bradbury argues that being conscious of the fact that you only have a certain amount of time on the Earth gives you a better understanding of how to live life in a way that will leave the least amount of regret.
“Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment.” These are the words of the Buddha. Buddha believed that people should live in the now, not to worry about the past or the future. Sadly, we weren’t able to learn about his work during the unit. Through the dream unit, we have looked at many perspectives and different ways people share them. We looked at speeches, videos, books and articles, and yes, even game shows. But while dreams can lead to bad outcomes, people should always dream because it leads us to better things in our life, if we fail, we can learn important lessons, and dreaming gives us a purpose in life.
The message of this short story could be to appreciate the present and not to always look forward at what it could be or to look back at what could have been.
Longfellow, on the other hand, speaks about the qualities of a person. In lines 19-20 of “A Psalm of Life”, it states, “Be not like dumb, driven cattle! Be a hero in the strife!” Longfellow also speaks about one’s relationship to religion. In line 24, it states, Heart within, and God o’erhead!”
Longfellow said “Truest no future Howe’er pleasant”. This line shows the author disbelief in future achievements. He prefers to fight in the present without expecting any future alibi. This writer is projecting a realistic personality about life. He is not willing to see the future in a positive way. Instead, he use his present strength and reasonable though to face his daily problems. He has not faith, dreams or expectation about his future life and he just does things to survive one day at the time. In contrast to the poem “Invictus” by William Henley stated “I am the master of my fate; / I am the captain of my soul.” This statement shows the people decide what their future will be the enormous power of faith. All things that people do in
The infamous poem “A Psalm of Life,” written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and chapter 39 of the book of Psalm in the Bible share many similarities as they both give advice on how to live one’s life. However, there are several differences in the two. In “A Psalm of Life,” the author wants to send out the message of not to live life in pursuit of death, but rather embrace every moment of it in pursuit of happiness. Although heaven maybe the ultimate goal in the end, we should all work to live life to the fullest . Life does not end with death, the soul lives on after earth, “Dust thou art, to dust returnest/Was not spoken of the soul.”
Sometimes, in life we lose everything that we deem as important so that we are able to find out what truly is. The two works that I’ll be examining correspond to this statement. By examining the works Siddhartha by Herman Hesse and The History by Herodotus, we can see that being happy in life doesn’t always come easily and there are some bumps along the road to get there. Siddhartha shows us that in order to achieve the happiness that we want, we have to look at the life we are living at the moment and decide if it is what we really want. And The History also shows us that in order to achieve the happiness we want in life, we have to reflect on the life we’ve lived and make a change. Siddhartha and Croesus teach us that the obstacles we face are the stepping stones
As Emerson perceived the world, “Man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoes to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time” (“Self-Reliance” 833-834). Even if a man finds himself with both self-trust and originality, he may never realize his true potential if he is preoccupied with past events or future fortunes. Emerson finds these obsessions to be utterly useless: “Discontent is the want of self-reliance; it is the infirmity of will. Regret calamities, if you can thereby help the sufferer; if not, attend to your own work, and already the evil begins to be repaired” (838). In contemporary society, a willingness to “live in the moment” is highly regarded, especially among youth, yet this acceptance seems to wane with age. Nevertheless, excessive anxiousness and nostalgia are a waste of the potential that can be realized when the truths of the present are
In the poem, Psalm by the author Whittemore describes god as an individual that takes care of his children rather than punish those who have sinned. People see the word of the lord by forgiving god for they have sinned but never ask themselves the true question does god truly forgive them or the ones who sin know they will take advantage of the word of the lord. This will all the depend on the individual themselves if they truly believe in the name of the lord they will not condemn god.
Past, present and future are all important to keep in perspective. Looking back and not having regrets is extremely satisfying. Your current situation and your contentment with it are also very important, and having goals and milestones to work toward in the future keeps you motivated and keeps life interesting and challenging.
The past, the present, and the future are all equally important in defining who we are. Therefore, we should not just be content with ourselves all the time- we should feel anger, sadness, happiness, joy, and love; not just “drunkenness”. Part of what makes life so beautiful is the knowledge that we are only on this earth for a limited time- so why do we live if we constantly want to escape
The the poem “A psalm of life” and “Excelsior” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow demonstrates the romantic trends of admiration for a man of action, intuition, and admiration for the adventurous. Both poems exhibit the main character, a romantic hero and highlights the theme of living life to the fullest. In the poem Psalm of Life, Longfellow illustrates the romantic hero as a man of action. For example he says “ but to act, that each to-morrow/find us farther than to-day”, displaying his desire to live a fulfilled life.