The common denominator.

Talk about a man who inspires you! After reading The Art of Seeing, by John Burroughs I felt like a completely refreshed, renewed person. Every word he spilled out of the page was so beautifully written,  and put together.

To be more specific, there were some quotes I pulled out of his work which really hit home with me more than the others. On page 146, the first page of his piece, he says, "The secret, no doubt, is love of the sport...what we love to do, that we do well. To know is not all; it is only half. To love is the other half". AMAZING. I feel like Burroughs hit it right on the head here. This is something that I have been struggling with a lot lately. Being as I am going into the field of education, in hopes of one day being a middle school english teacher, I hear a lot about how much the job market is suffering, and how I'm going to have a terribly hard time finding work once I graduate. While, yes, this may be the case, I have a lot of peers who are contemplating switching their major because of this job issue. I can't help but think that is a mistake. "The secret, no doubt, is the love of the sport". Teaching students, in this case, is the sport that I love. I can't imagine myself pursuing a career in anything BUT teaching. Taking what Burrough's said, and twisting it around a little bit, I feel like if you love what you do, and are truly passionate about it, you will be successful and do it well. He flat out says that half of "the secret" is to love. If we love what we do, we will figure the logistics out along the way.

Another line of this piece that I really connected with is on page 147 where Burrough's states, "Love is the measure of life; only so far as we love do we really live".
To a point, this quote also lines up with the previous one I discussed, with the common theme being love. "Only so far as we love do we really life". That may be one of the most beautiful sayings I have ever read. Without love we are nothing, we can't really live and experience life to the fullest without loving every minute along the way. If we don't love our "sport", love the nature around us, love our families, or friends...what are we really doing here in life?

Love is the common denominator.

Experiencing Life.

"I mean that they should not play life, or study it merely, while the community supports them at this expensive game, but earnestly live it from beginning to end". I'm not a huge Thoreau fan to be honest with you. I find his book, Walden to be a tad dry. Possibly also a tad, dare I say, boring? However, I feel like there is always SOMETHING a person can pick out of even their least favorite of books which appeals to them. For me? I have been, and always will be a quote girl.

I love a good quote more than anything else in this entire world (Okay, that may be a bit of an exaggeration, but I REALLY love quotes). It seems like no matter what you're going through in life, finding the perfect quote to explain your situation can somehow make things a tad better.

After reading Walden, I was able to find a couple quotes which really stuck out to me, but for now we'll just stick with the one above.  The part of this specific line which I enjoyed the most was the ending portion, "...earnestly live if from beginning to end". That may be one of the most beautiful lines I have ever heard. I have to reiterate, I really do think Thoreau was a tad crazy for sending himself into "isolation" for so long, however some of the ideas that he left Walden Pond with are extremely inspiring.

I feel like I can relate to Thoreau on the smallest level here. It took him going out into the woods, alone, for him to be reminded of this idea that we can't simply just study life, or learn about life, or watch others live their lives. We have to earnestly LIVE our lives. From beginning to end. Before going out into the woods for out Nature experiment in class, I had gotten so caught up in the daily stresses of life without even realizing it. I have 2 jobs, while also being a full time student. I love being busy, but I don't think I was really loving living my life. Much like Thoreau, it took going into the woods, by myself to remind me to slow down. I needed to stop living my life through text books, cell phones, computers, and work.

Truly living is doing things like throwing yourself out in the middle of nature; giving yourself a chance to EXPERIENCE the world around you rather than just talking about it in a classroom. At times, it can be hard to remember that "the way" we live really does impact how we function as people, and I feel like if we all could realize this, there would be much happier people in the world.