What I Lived For Analysis

Thoreau argues that many are incapable of achieving that goal because they live in a world full of details that takes focus away from living life. Moreover, we have so much on our plates, that it takes time away from reflecting on the personal self. Throughout the excerpt, Thoreau uses metaphors to approach the obstacles faced when living life in a world where everything must be done. Thoreau states that the competition for resources create a world where we are often cruel and compete with one another. In order to achieve the goal of living life fully, Thoreau proposes solutions that allow us to find our true purpose, take inconsideration nature and

Thoreau saw this ideal way of life in nature as well. He believed that the key to this spiritually rich, ideal existence was to simplify one's life. If one were to give up all unnecessary and materialistic ties, and live with the bare necessities (fuel, clothing, shelter, food) then one may spend more time concentrating on developing spiritually.

Henry David Thoreau goes to live in a forest for a few years and writes about the philosophies and ideas he learns through experience in an excerpt called Where I Lived and What I Lived For. Thoreau argues how life will be of much better quality if you reduce all the unnecessary luxuries from your life; according to Thoreau living the simple life is in fact luxurious. Thoreau employs the rhetorical strategies of compare and contrast, analogy, and aphorisms to demonstrate how technology hinders our ability to live a simple life.

Instead, Thoreau built a simple but efficient cabin and furnished it with the basic necessity of a bed, table, chairs and desk. He also didn't waste his time and energy trying to keep up with the latest fashions; he wore comfortable and long lasting clothes. Thoreau explained to his readers that this simplistic way of life decreased the dreariness of every day life and left more time to explore one's meaning of life and his role in the world. Freeing oneself from the economic race, Thoreau argued, allowed for individual to be inspired by nature and focus on the genuine concerns of life.

Thoreau says, "I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartanlike as to put to rout all that was not life, ... and reduce it to its lowest terms" (Thoreau 235). Thoreau also says, "We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us" (Thoreau 237). This means that some things which we believe make our lives simpler actually make it more complicated.

Another major transcendental value that Thoreau stresses and follows is simplicity. He discusses simplicity several times in Walden, saying “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumbnail” (Thoreau 196). Thoreau believed that you need to live simply in order to transcend. Katniss demonstrates simplicity by living her life with minimal resources. She also looks down upon the lavish lifestyle of those who live in the Capitol. Living simply benefits Katniss because it makes her realize and appreciate the

Living life in simplicity is a trend set by Thoreau as he goes to the woods to be free from society’s expectations. He desires for everyone to stop living their life so complicated as they’re being consumed by the want of materialistic things “Most of the luxuries… positive hindrances to the elevation of mankind” (Thoreau Walden “Economy”). As society

For instance, in “Deconstructing the Shed: Where I live and What I Live For,” Samuel Alexander discusses the impact that Thoreau and his book Walden Pond, had on his life and work with connecting it to his life of living simpler. Alexander states, “The aim of this financial exercise is not to create tightwads, but smart consumers who are conscious of the life/time cost of their purchases. After all, as Thoreau would insist, "the cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run" (31).” He states that a simple life with that in mind can have him changing his spending habits with a positive outlook to his life. Richard Prud’Homme in “Walden’s Economy of Living” talks about one of Thoreau’s most important reminders to simplicity, which is “hands-on living.” He quotes Thoreau on his engagement to thinking through his hands, stating “My head is hands and feet” (Walden 70). In “Coaching with simplicity: Thoreau and Sport,” Doug Hochstetler discusses Thoreau’s idea of “simplicity.” He connects how applying simplicity factors can improve coaching experience. Hochstetler states some conditions that can be connected to simplicity, which include but are not limited to freedom, self-discipline, reflection, and attention. He believes if coaches connected these

Thoreau’s believes in simplicity to reduce problems of “trivial affairs”. In the quote, “Every morning was a cheerful invitation to make my life of equal simplicity, and I may say innocence, with Nature herself.” Thoreau links simplicity with nature. Thoreau conveys the message that a person can live simply through wisdom and just because the smarter and more successful your life is does not mean that you have to give in to its complexity. By reducing your life’s problems and options into simplest terms Thoreau believes you can live happily and find

As a student of University of Delaware, I expect to be comfortable with the academic side of college life. I have always been a hard worker who pushes myself to learn more about the subjects that I take, as well as subjects of my personal interest. Over the next four years, as a UD student, I would take advantage of every opportunity to improve my knowledge of the variety of subjects that I can take.

Well as I know when you enter a new school you need to survive because you need to make new friends some people are going to talk to you because you don’t have friends in the room or in the school, the hard thing is when you are in lunch and you are alone because you don't have friends to talk some people are going to sit with you and they are going to talk with you. I know survive is hard in the new school, because everyone is looking at you, and you don’t know everyone, and some people start making faces to you because you don’t have friends in the school. Survive can be hard and easy, because you need to talk right to the teachers, and to the students, like me, when it was first day in school i don’t know everyone and I don’t have friends in the classroom. So i need to survive and make new friends, and i need to talk right to the teachers, because they get mad when you don’t talk right to them. So it was so hard to me to survive that room because people will

As Thoreau headed out to the woods to be alone and away from society, he found himself, seeing the hustle and bustle the people in the town. Behind Emerson and Thoreau’s idea “simplicity” would make this world a better place (1029). Although Thoreau ended up finding himself in a routine that’s when he had to change things up and shift his path. People worry about too many things around them. This world is full of unnecessary material possessions, the latest phone, tablet, car, and clothes among other things. In the busyness of having it all

Thoreau really stresses that living with the distractions of self desires and the dirty temptations of society can only drag you down to the pains that a conformist life can bring. The latter is described as he states, “Wherever a man goes, men will pursue him and paw him with their dirty institutions, and, if they can, constrain him to belong to their desperate oddfellow society.” Simplicity is the paramount theme of both of these works because of the lessons and advice given on how living simply can prevent one from dealing with the stresses of jobs and personal desire. Instead, people should focus on the simple joys of life, the natural gifts and talents they are given, and growing themselves as individuals, which will

The Rest of Us Just Live Here is narrated from the perspective of a teenage boy, doing ordinary things in a boring town in his last year of High School. The twist, is that Ness begins each chapter with a solitary paragraph that describes an out of place, supernatural event that is taking place in the same town, and of which the main characters are completely unaware. Ness does not develop these strange events, or reveal anything about the characters involved in them; what Ness tries to show is that “not everyone can be the chosen one”. He is defying every other story ever written in which the protagonist is the hero that saves the day. In this book the protagonist is just a boy who wants to leave his school, escape his family and pass his exams.

Ladies and gentlemen tonight on “This is your Life” we are going to discuss the story of a holocaust survivor, but do not fret because we will refrain from the raw graphic detail from this time in history, we plan to bring back people from her past to build the drama, and we will also shower her with gifts afterwards in order to ensure appearances are kept up. Although this sounds like a horrendous idea for a talk show due to the fact that Holocaust survivors have tremendous difficulty telling their story NBC presented this story. An episode aired about a woman named Hanna Bloch Konner in May 1953 on NBC. When America started to feel the importance of recording and sharing Holocaust survivors stories with the world a variety of factors came