Live and Learn by Chris

Live and Learn by Chris - August 2013 Scholarship Essay

“The value of any experience is measured, of course, not by the amount of money, but the amount of development we get out of it” (Thoreau). Henry David Thoreau clearly understood that the best kind of knowledge had to be experienced, instead of taught. My encounter with this concept was, coincidentally, while reading his work.
           
As part of my English class, we had to read Thoreau's Walden. We had already covered several other transcendental authors and I was hardly excited to read another nature-freak's inch-thick treatise on simple living and starving in the woods. Lacking the motivation to go about the assignment properly, I slacked off. A lot. It wasn't so much of a conscious decision to not put forth my best work, rather, it was something I allowed to just happen. Once I finished reading the book (i.e. skimming), I threw together some sloppy piece of writing about what Thoreau meant by his quest to, as he put it, “live deliberately” and how I didn't appreciate his telling me how to live my life.
           
On the other hand, my English teacher loves reading and teaching Walden to his classes. I suspect he loves anything with words printed on a page, but he has a particular affection for Thoreau and took much of his writing to heart, even going so far as building his own house. Needless to say, I did not receive a fantastic grade. Fortunately, I was given the opportunity to redo the writing and earn back some of the lost points.
           
The second time around, I thought I might as well work hard and do this the right way. And the more I wrote, the more I began to realize what Thoreau was saying. Instead of asking us to emulate his solitary life in the woods, the book argues that through hard work, one can create a worthwhile purpose in anything. By this point, something in my mind clicked, and I finally figured out what was going on: my deliberate effort was exactly what Thoreau wanted his readers to do. In that moment I felt quite smart, and then immediately quite stupid for not getting it right away.
           
Ever since then, I have learned that deliberate effort can work in almost every aspect of my life. Running cross country, researching topics for debate, and even writing scholarship essays: they all turn out the best when I choose to do them of my own free will and to do them well for its own sake. That is usually easier said than done, but that's the point, and it is impossible to aim too high.
 
Thoreau, Henry D. "Journal XIII." The Writings of Henry David Thoreau. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1906. N. pag. Print.