Currently Reading David Great Lives Series: Volume 1 By Charles R. Swindoll see related

I was an English Literature major in college.

One of my real loves is reading. When I found that I could actually get good grades at something AND graduate with a degree in it, I was hooked. So I signed up to discover literature (albeit in a rather sheltered environment) and decide what I enjoyed...and what would get me A's.

And one of my favorite "reads" of all time was Henry David Thoreau.

I find myself at a point in my life when I can identify on an entirely different level with this thinker. It is as though a Christian (in the very ancient sense of the word) transcendentalist has found her way to Connecticut and is now determined to find God's plan...

As I recently wrote to a good friend, I have never been a fan of "doing something just because it's unexpected" or of being rebellious (for rebellion's sake). I don't really care that people go, "wow, Beth, we never expected that of you!" as though "little Beth" has something to prove to the world.

Forget that.

But I do want to be "deliberate" in the sense of the transcendentalists.... 

So my question is, what quote speaks to your situation? Why?

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise (sic) resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."--Walden