“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." - Henry David Thoreau
In 1845 Henry David Thoreau went into the woods of Concord Massachusetts where he lived in isolation and solitude for over two years. During this time in the woods, Thoreau grew in understanding what it meant to truly live life and enjoy the moment.
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately..”
This quote has changed my perspective. While I’m well aware that Thoreau was a transcendentalist this is how I aspire to live, Deliberately. What does living deliberately mean? It means coming out of your comfort zone. Throwing yourself in a cave and facing your fears head on. Living deliberately is trying things you’d never tried before; interacting with people you wouldn’t usually hang out with. This life gets so busy and being constantly bombarded with things and never feeling rested or never having enough time in the day is draining.
“I wanted to live deep and suck our all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all the was not life-“ Thoreau got it, he understood what it meant to pause and soak in life.
“Things do not change; we change” The house is the same house, the shoes are the same size, and the song is the same melody but we move, we grow, and we learn to sing a new song. Taking time to pause and enjoy the stage of life that you’re in right now is something we all could learn to do.
Walden Weekend gave students an amazing opportunity to step back from our busy sometimes hectic and stressful lives to completely submerge ourselves in nature and acquire new inspiration for living and writing.
