Imagine This: Although you are Harvard educated, you decide at the age of twenty-seven, to build a small house with your own hands in the woods where you can study nature and not get caught up in the materialistic pressures of the world around you. Your aim is not to escape civilization but to simplify it. At the time, people criticize your simple way of life, but you have always been an independent thinker, and you continue to live your own life the way you want to.
You’re born near Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817, the third of four children. Your father is a shopkeeper, but by the time you’re born, his business is failing and your family is very poor even by the standards of 1817.
While your father is quiet and studious, your mother is friendly, outgoing, and has a generous heart. She always finds a way to help those poorer than herself and welcomes everyone into your home. She is also known to speak her mind on the social and political issues of the day, particularly on such subjects as slavery to which she is strongly opposed.
You enjoy growing up in Concord where you can spend your time outdoors enjoying nature. You enter Harvard at sixteen where you’re deeply influenced by writers such as Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson.
You graduate from Harvard in 1837, but you’re not a particularly outstanding student because of your independent ways. After your graduation, you return to Concord and begin recording your thoughts and experiences in a journal.
In the fall of 1838, you and your brother John open a private school which becomes very successful, but you have to close the school in 1841 when your brother becomes ill and can no longer teach.
You have always loved living a simple life, away from the intense pressures of a competitive society. You champion the independence of the human spirit over materialism and social conformity.
There is a pond near Concord named Walden, and this is one of your favorite places to just sit and think. In your late twenties, you build a little house on one of Walden’s shores where you can be alone. Your house is very simple and has only one room, one table, a bed, and three chairs.
Nature is like a living being to you and you want to do more than just enjoy its beauty. You want to get so close to it that you become one with it. One entire morning, you lay on your stomach and watch a war between red and black ants.
By living at Walden, you want to prove to yourself and to other people that someone can live very, very simply. Living so simply frees you to do what you really want to do: to see, to learn, to think, and to write.
Your most famous book Walden is published in 1854, but it is not recognized as one of the great American classics of nonfiction until after your death. It has never gone out of print and it has appeared in more than 150 different editions, often selling in the hundreds of thousands of copies.
Despite the emphasis in Walden on solitude, you’re not a hermit. You have many friends including the novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne and the philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson. Your friends are important to you and you once write that “Friends are kind to each other’s dreams.”
When you die on May 6, 1862, at age forty-four from tuberculosis, Concord loses its most distinguished son and the nation loses a man and writer unique in any age.
But that is not the end of your story. After your death, you achieve an eminent place as one of the most influential writers in the world and influence national leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi in India and Martin Luther King, Jr., in America.
“If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.”
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)
Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey
For More about
Giving Back: Thoreau believed that he could best help others by encouraging them to “simplify” their lives.
Did You Know that when Thoreau graduated from Harvard, he did not think it was worth it to pay the $5.00 fee to receive his diploma, so he left without a diploma?
Something to Think about: What do you think about Thoreau’s statement that he felt many people live lives of “quiet desperation?”
Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!
Tags: biography, Concord, Henry David Thoreau, naturalist, philosopher, Walden, writer
Henry left the ordinary and added that little extra. I guess he found a simple formula for living a simple life, and that’s living peacefully with yourself and nature.
Every life goal we set is always targeted towards living a happy and fulfilled life. That’s our quiet desperation. Henry followed his heart and achieved this in a ‘simple’ way. Nice post.
Thanks, Lanre, he was a social conformist in the best sense of the term. He was true to his own beliefs and lived his life accordingly. Thanks for your comment and please stop by again!
It’s almost like a Who Am I game!
Love the articles, thank you for sharing.
You’re right, Corri. Some of these amazing people are pretty easy to recognize, but I try to leave the most revealing clues to the end.
Thanks so much for dropping by again!
I was sent by Gypsy Mama Logs. This book looks great!
Thanks so much, Amy, I appreciate your stopping by!
Thank you for the giveaway at Gypsy Mama! I am a teacher & mom blogger, books that I can enjoy with my children and/or students are always great! Have a Merry Christmas
You’re welcome for the giveaway and thanks for stopping by. Merry Christmas to you too and please stop by again!
Howdy! Would you mind if I share your blog with my zynga group? There’s a lot of folks that I think would really enjoy your content. Please let me know. Cheers
Feel free to share my blog with them and thanks for dropping by!
Merry Christmas and thanks for the giveaway over at Gypsy Mama’s blog! Such an inspiring idea for a book I would love to share with my children ages 1,2,3 and 7!
You’re most welcome, Ashley, and have a wonderful Christmas!
Sent by Gypsy Mama blog
Thanks for dropping by, Velvet, and I hope you enjoy my blog!
Great post Sandra. I am always so interested in reading and learning more about the people you feature here. Living simply seems to be so much more of a challenge as I get older and everything around me seems to promote the idea that one’s sole purpose in life is to acquire more stuff. Although I will never know what it was like to live at Walden, I would love to try and create my own modern version of it through a simpler lifestyle.
I couldn’t agree more, Aja, and that’s one of my resolutions for the new year–to try to live more simply with less “stuff.” Thanks for you comment and please stop by again!
Merry Christmas! Thanks for a chance to win this wonderful book of real life heroes for kids of all ages to look up to and emulate! Gypsy Mama sent me, & I’m glad she did!
Good Luck, Monja, and I hope you also enjoy mu blog!
This looks like a great book! I think my boys will love it.
Thanks, Catherine, and if they would like an autographed copy, just let me know at Sandra305@aol.com.
Hi there, I simply found your blog through Google.
I’m glad you found my blog, Tiesha, and please stop by again!
Thanks for the giveaway from Gypsy Mama
You’re most welcome, Robin, and I hope you enjoy my blog!
My husband and I have often used that quote, that “most people live lives of quiet desperation.” I didn’t know it was from Thoreau. We have tried to teach our children to get in touch with their dreams and to go after them, no matter what those around them are saying. There seem to be so few people that really even have a compelling dream these days. I enjoyed reading about Thoreau, thanks for the story:)
You’re welcome, Karen. I believe everyone is given a special gift or “passion,” but, unfortunately, some are never discovered. I’m so glad you’re talking to your children about their dreams and aspirations and please stop by again!
Love your blog, in fact arrived by checking yahoo and google for a comparable issue to this post. Which means this might be a late post nevertheless keep up the great work.
I’m glad you enjoyed my blog and please drop by again!