Walden Reflection

In “Walden” by Henry David Thoreau, the author is speaking in present tense and expresses many of his opinions on how to live your life. He discusses simplicity with your belongings and possessions. He also explains how not to be pressured by the world and to make your own path to success.
He gives some background information about himself and where he is living. For example, he describes the reason why he decided the live in the woods is “because I wished the live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life…when I came to die, discover that I had not lived” (Thoreau 376). This quote connects with the title, “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.” This shows that the author wanted to live in the forest to escape the society that he was living in. He only wanted to live on the essentials of life and not be caught up with what the world said he needed.
The author also discusses the importance of simplicity and how we should want only what we need in life and not what we desire. He explains how our lives can be destroyed by the “luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and worth aim” (Thoreau 377). This shows that we should not live out of greed and self want. We should not focus so much on the worldly possessions and their costs but on the things that will help us survive. We should be proud of our circumstances, even if they are not the best.
The author describes how we should choose our own path to successfulness by saying, “perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer, let him step to the music which he hears” (Thoreau 378). Here he explains that we should follow our hearts and we will be victorious in our lives. We are all going to live our independent lives.