What I learned from Henry David Thoreau

The famed naturalist, born July 12, 1817 in Concord, Massachusetts (there was no MA abbreviation - or 01742 zip code - back then), was in the news this week to mark the 200th anniversary of his birth.

Henry and I go way back.  My freshman year in college I had the good fortune to study English with a professor who had done his doctorate on Thoreau.  We spent the entire second semester reading and discussing Walden.  Of all the college courses I have taken, that is the one that has stayed with me, sustained me through the years.  The rest of my studies helped me earn a living, but Henry nourished my soul and shaped the way I live.

I can quote Henry by the yard and by the hour, but I will restrain myself to these: 

"I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society."
  
I have three chairs on my balcony; a reading chair tucked in a corner, and two more on either side of a small round table for guests.

"Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes."

I used this quote to begin a speech when I was the toastmaster at a conference.   Wearing not new, but perfectly presentable, clothes and my trademark sandals. 

 “I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” 

Eons ago I had a dream of living on a tropical island.

 “If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.” 

I made the dream of tropical living a reality and have never looked back.

 “I find it wholesome to be alone the greater part of the time. To be in company, even with the best, is soon wearisome and dissipating. I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.” 

Jean Paul Sartre said  "Hell is other people."  I like Henry's version better.  Both ring true.

Lastly....

 “Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand; instead of a million count half a dozen, and keep your accounts on your thumb nail.”

Less IS more, but Henry said it first.

Penny Pincher