Society has ways of corrupting its members and molding them into what society wants them to be. Only the greats of society have been able to break society's grip on them. Often they were shunned and told their ideas were ridiculous, but in later generations, they were revered as geniuses. As Emerson says, "To be

When living in society man should also not get discouraged by society. If man lets society control his life, he will never live it the way he should. Emerson gives an example of a young man's struggle of not finding a job after studying at one of the finest colleges. "If the finest genius studies at one of our colleges, and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or New York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened" (194). Then he compares him to a hard working man who bounces around jobs, has had many jobs but is living life not without regret. "A sturdy lad.... who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it, farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper,.... and feels no shame in not `studying a profession,' for he does not postpone his life, but lives already"(194). Emerson shows this struggle to let the reader relate to an everyday occurrence. The genius let society turn him down and get the best of him; he learned nothing from his struggle. Where the sturdy lad kept at it and was able to live his life. The most important thing in life is not to have anyone but you control it. The sturdy lad took control, where as the genius let people in society tell him he was not good enough for their business. This all goes back to the quote "our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our marriages, our religion, we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us" where Emerson is saying society chooses it for us (194). The sturdy lad did not let society choose his fate but took control of it and lived his life. Society chose the fate of the genius and he was miserable because he was not where he wanted to be.

great is to be misunderstood" (183). What he means by this is the ideas we have, may seem to be abstract and wrong at the time, but that is because the thinking of the period has not progressed to that level. However, all the great thinkers have always been misunderstood until society has caught up to them. They were all ahead of there times. By saying this, Emerson is trying to open people up into being bolder with their ideas before someone else thinks of the same thing. "In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts;" (176) if society did not hinder man's decision to cast aside those thoughts, that man would have been considered a great. "Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his" (176). Emerson wants people to trust their own judgment, without regard to the consensu

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Approximate Word count = 1721
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)