please give me a two on this blog for trying, because this reading was worse then listening to sarah palin talk about foreign policy

What I got from this reading, more from the title self-reliance then actually understanding the reading, was that in order to be successful (according to Emerson) you have to believe in yourself and trust yourself completely. With this confidence, you are then capable of succeeding. Furthermore, you cannot conform to society because it stops you from being yourself and therefore successful. While all this was nice and good, I feel like those are two conflicting ideas because in order to move up and succeed in a job you have to conform. For example, in Cruz’s piece he was incapable from making the next step because he continued advocating for minorities. Anyway, alone I would be ok with these conflicting notions, but then he began talking about consistency. The conflicting notions of his statements are not consistent with each other, which greatly added to my discontent while reading this horridly long article. Do I agree it takes this to be successful? Yes to belief in yourself and consistency, no to conformity. But it’s not that simple. These are just a few things that add to the inability for a person to become completely successful