Successful

Blog – What is Emerson saying it takes to be successful? Do you agree? Is it that easy

Emerson says to be successful you must be confident (even arrogant), non-conforming, unapologetic, inconsistent, misunderstood, self-sufficient, truthful, solitary, a non-traveler, unique, and you must be yourself. Basically, Emerson says that to be successful you have to do what you want to do and not worry about what other people think. He seems to be very anti-society and anti-government based upon his writing. Emerson suggests that society is the cause for so many people being unsuccessful and that to be successful one must not conform to the standards of society and no apologize about it either. Uniqueness, being yourself, is what Emerson believes is the key ingredient to success. He also adds some random ideas into the equation as well, such as not being a traveler.
I don't agree with Emerson for one reason: many people become succesful by building off of other people's ideas. "Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it" (George Santayana). The inverse of this quote works as well: those who pay attention to history are likely to build upon it. Otherwise, I think that Emerson's ideas are spot-on (except for his random blurb about not traveling). People get too caught up in society's definition of success - a house, a car, a family, etc. that they miss out on the real success - being yourself.
Becoming successful is not easy. By Emerson's standards it's a ginormous task: dismiss all those years of society's definition of success being pounded into you. Learning how to feel successful without much physical proof (i.e. material objects) is not easy. Becoming any of the things that Emerson says that it takes to be successful is counter-intuitive, natural (based on society being natural - which it is for most people), and therefore, difficult.